Deadzone
by Bri-chanHozuki
Summary: Lilith is the eldest daughter of the Ackerman's, seven years older than Mikasa. Her dream is to join the Scouting Legion, but three years before she joins them she meets a man that is similar to herself in more ways than one. Levi/Corporal Rivaille x OC
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

Blood pumped through my viens as my heart pounded faster and faster against my chest. The muscles in my legs screamed for me to stop running but I couldn't. My decision, I decided, was final. I don't care anymore what my parents think. My younger sister didn't talk to me much, so I never heard her thoughts about me wanting to join the Scouting Legion. She's only five years old though, so she wouldn't understand.

Of course my mother, who was the last true Oriental left that I know of, wanted me to learn sewing techniques that were passed down through her family. She was the one that got mad whenever I mentioned that I wanted to venture outside of the walls, into the vast land conquered by the titans. My father just sighed and shook his head whenever he heard about it.

I'm almost old enough now to join the Trainees Squad for this year, and I'm as sure as hell that I can survive almost a month until the three years of torture start.

I decided to enjoy the cold night air as I slowed my pace. Some long locks of my black hair danced around in the wind. The more populated parts of Wall Maria appeared in my sight. 'I wonder if my family has noticed that I left yet? Even if they do find me, no matter what my punishment is, I will not give up on my dream. Now, where's a good place to sleep where no one will notice me?'

My gaze darted around the empty streets. One thing caught my eye; a pair of green eyes that matched my own, staring straight into my eyes. It was an intense stare, like the creature was looking into my soul. I noticed the animal move closer to me until it was down by my feet.

"A cat?" I accidently questioned aloud. No one was around, so I found it easy for a smile to grace my lips as I reached down to pet the cat's soft black fur.

As a purr rumbled through it's throat, it looked up at me once more and blinked, then turned and ran into a dark alley. I hesitated for a moment, but sucked up my fear and followed after it. It didn't take long for my eyes to adjust to the dim light, but once it did, I saw the black cat standing in front of what looked like an old underground cellar.

"Mrrow!" The cat yowled at me and started pacing, apparently wanting me to open the door and follow it inside.

I walked down the steps and placed a hand on the door knob. The rough feeling of rust rubbed against my hand as I turned it. I figured that it would be locked if no one wanted company, but it looked like it was abandoned so I just pushed on the door some more until there was enough space for the cat and I to get through.

"You seem happy, cat. Was this your home?" I asked it as it rubbed it's head against my leg.

I stopped speaking whenever I heard footsteps. The cat arched it's back as it stared into the shadows, seeing the figure of a boy that I could only see the silhouette of. But what I could see clearly was the glint of a clean knife. I took a step back towards the open door, pondering whether to run for it or try to fight him. I chose the latter, because this would be the perfect place for me to stay until I join the Trainees. I may not be very skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but at least I have the guts to try and defend myself against a person with a weapon.

I ducked as the knife was sent my way, peircing into the stone wall behind me. I saw this oppertunity to grab the knife and use it to my advantage. But by the time I hand my hands gripped on the handle, I had been slammed to the floor with a kick, knocking the breath out of me. The boy placed the heel of his boot on my face to make sure I didn't move.

"Tch. Nice try, but I really don't think someone like you should try fighting." The boy's face was now visable to me from the corner of my eye. He had short-ish black hair and an annoyed look on his handsome face. His dark brows furrowed as he reached down and grabbed the knife that was laying on the floor next to me. The weight on the side of my head dissappeared, and I slowly sat up to see what was going on.

I couldn't help but to sweat-drop at the sight in front of me. The boy took out a cloth and was cleaning the knife, and then the door knob, and then he walked over to me and glared. I finally brought myself to speak.

"What did you mean "someone like you"?" I asked, moving my bangs out of my left eye and tucking them behind an ear so that they wouldn't get in the way.

"I can tell you're just weak." He replied, blue-grey eyes looking over me. I squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze, and I noticed how his face lightened up some from that scowl it seemed to be stuck in.

He knelt down in front of me. "I wonder how much I'd get paid for you?"

"W-What?!" I hissed at him. The cat from earlier seemed to have left, which I didn't blame it.

"You're an Oriental, right?"

"What if I am? That doesn't mean you have the right to sell me to those perverts at an auction!" I knew all to well about this sort of thing, since I had heard of the slave rumors.

"Answer my question." He said strictly, pointing the knife at me again.

"I'm half." I answered plainly.

"I assumed that because of the green eyes. Now tell me a reason why I shouldn't sell you to a pervert." He said with a smug expression.

"I'm going to join the Scouting Legion!"

"You? A weak person like you? Ha, you make me... Disgusted." He frowned.

"How so?" I ask, confused.

"You'd never make it through training." He stated and flicked my forehead, and I flinched.

"See," he points out, "You just flinched. I could tell by the way you hesitated minutes ago that you weren't anything worth wasting my energy on."

"I thought that the whole point of the Trainee Squads are to teach you how to become stronger?"

"It is, but it would be a lot less stress on your mind and body if you already were accustumed to the things you go through there. I suggest you toughen up before you join, or else you won't be able to keep up with me in any subject."

"You're going too?" I ask, somewhat glad about it. There's something about this boy that causes me to be drawn toward him, despite the eerie presence I felt.

"Don't ask any more questions, and please, just leave. I'll have to clean this whole place now since your boots tracked in dirt." He stood and offered a hand for me to take. I took it and he helped me up.

He pointed to the door but I stood glued to the spot I was at.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"I don't have anywhere to go..." I trail off, looking down at my feet.

"Ughh. You ran away from home, didn't you? You wasn't smart enough to bring extra clothes or anything either. Just go back. I'm sure it's not that bad." He groaned.

I blinked at him a few times and still didn't move. I was trying to put on a sad face.

"What is your name?" He finally asks, and I try to smile a little as I take this as a sign that he'll let me stay.

"Lilith Eira Ackerman."

"Well then, Ackerman, call me Levi." He shoves me out the door and slams it shut behind me. "Stay out!"

'That fucking bastard. He acts like he accepts me and then kicks me out. I suppose I do need to get stronger. I need to learn how to defend myself especially since now I will be roaming around by myself. I guess I'll start tomorrow by finding someone to fight with. But first I need to get some rest.' I look around once more for a place to sleep, and decided to climb up a tree and sleep up off of the ground where it was safe.

* * *

Rays of sunlight shone on my pale face and awokened me. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Before I jumped down from the branch I was on, I heard sounds of an animal in pain nearby. I stood up on the thick branch and balanced easily as I scanned the area for the source of the sound. I lump of black fur was being kicked around by two boys. My heart skipped a beat whenever I realized it was the cat from last night, and I knew that I needed to save it.

"Well, this is the perfect opportunity for me to learn how to fight." I muttered and slid down the tree, landing on the ground below with a light thud.

Whenever I was within hearing distance of the voices of the two boys, I cringed at what one of them was saying.

"Look at it squirm! Hold it down again so I can kick it."

Anger pulsed through my body and overtook my mind, and it controlled my actions as I ran up to the boys and threw a punch at the one kicking the cat. My fist collided with his face, and I tackled him down to the ground and hit him repeatedly in the head. The cat fled from the battle. I stopped punching the boy whenever my knuckles started to bleed, but I never noticed the pain that I should have felt from it. I whipped my head around and looked at the other boy staring at me in fright. I'm sure I looked like a demon, because he took off running. But I didn't let him get away. I jumped away from the boy I had already beaten and ran after the fleeing one.

I caught up quickly, and I pounced onto him, knocking us both to the ground. I slammed his face into the dirt and leaned down and hissed in his ear.

"You will now feel pain. The pain that the cat felt whenever you guys kicked it." I rose a fist and got ready to hit him whenever someone dragged me off and tried to restrict me from getting away by locking my arms back with their own.

I knew this eerie presence, and I didn't expect to see this person again so soon.

"Calm down Ackerman." Levi said as he loosened his hold on me.

"I gave them what they deserve. Besides, wasn't you the one who told me to become stronger?" The silk of my dress was slippery enough for me to slip out of his grip, and I turned around to face him. "Also, just call me Lilith." I said with a wave of my hand.

His eyes narrowed at the boy that was standing up. "Take your friend and get out of here." The boy silently agreed and helped his almost out-cold friend to his feet and they ran off into the streets.

"I thought I told you to go back to your home?" Levi questioned me.

"I'm not going back." I replied with a stomp of my foot.

Levi sighs and crosses his arms. "Why don't _you_ go back home?" I ask him, putting emphasis on "you".

His dark gaze locks with mine. "I'm a criminal, Lilith. I have to survive on my own."

"..." I was speechless, and I looked at my fists. They needed to be cleaned before they got infected.

No words were said as Levi grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me along with him. I ignored the curious glances people gave us as we walked past them. Whenever he led me to his home, he pulled me inside of it and told me to sit down on a stool. He walked off somewhere into the shadows, and he lit a candle so that he could see where he was going.

Levi came back shortly with a small bucket of water, a cloth, and some bandages in one hand, and the candle in the other. He sat the candle down on a little table nearby, then he sits the bucket of water down by my feet. He sits down on the stone floor and takes my cold hands into his own as he examined them. I wanted to tell him I could take care of myself, but the words didn't seem to form in my throat. I decide to let him show this act of kindness.

Levi glances up at my face, then takes the cloth and soaks it in water. He takes my left hand and wipes the blood off of my knuckles, being gentle and making sure to get the dirt out of the cuts. He does the same with my right hand.

"The cuts aren't that bad, but it looks like they might scar." Levi tells me as he reaches for the bandages.

"I need to look more intimidating anyways." I said, trying to add a bit of humor in this situation.

"The way you looked ealier was intimidating. If you were like that last night then I'm sure I would have been in trouble. What happened to make you like that?" I'm not sure if he was joking to make me feel stronger about myself or not, but I'll go with him telling the truth.

"They were hurting a cat." I replied.

"Hn. I don't think they'll try it again." Levi tells me and wraps the bandages around my knuckles, then puts away the stuff he got out. He pulls out another old wooden stool and sits in front of me. Wanting to talk I suppose? I place my hands in my lap.

"Why did you stop me earlier?" I ask him, really wondering why he did.

"You had the intent to kill."

"Why would you care?"

"I can care about what I want to."

"So Levi, why did you become a criminal."

"I do what I want."

"Okay, then are you going to kick me out again?" I ask with a hint of venom in my voice.

"Maybe." Levi replies.

Before I open my mouth to speak again, my stomach growls. I flush in embarrassment, and I look down at my feet. I could have swore I heard Levi chuckle, but it might have been my imagination since he hardly shows any emotion.

"Let me teach you how to get food around here." Levi tells me and stands up. He blows out the candle and walks over to the door and opens it with ease. "Come on." He says and I follow him back outside.

Once out in the streets, Levi looked at the merchant stalls, then back at me. 'Oh no, don't tell me..'

"Lilith, it would be best if we used you to get food."

"Why can't we just steal food instead?" I ask him, annoyed.

"There are too many people around that are stocking up for winter. We'd be caught quickly."

"Then tell me how I can get us some."

"Your looks are sure to get the attention of someone. Just act all cute." He tells me and punches my shoulder in a friendly manner.

"But what do I say?"

"Eh, you'll figure it out. I'll be right there waiting for you." Levi says and points towards a large tree. I stare after him as he walks off and leaves my side, making me feel uncomfortable and alone.

'Okay, I don't want to dissapoint him, so I'll try my best!'

I walk towards the direction of what looked like a meat stall, and there was an old lady standing behind the counter. Her grey hair was put up on top of her head in a neat bun to look elegant. She looks down at me and smiles. I put in all of my effort to smile sweetly, and I clasp my hands together behind me in a proper fashion as I look into her kind, grey eyes.

"What a pretty young woman. Would you like to try some turkey?" She asks me.

'Act innocent.' My mind reminded me.

"Y-Yes please. If you don't mind." I said shyly.

She nods and reaches down to grab a little sack of meat. She hands it to me and I smile brightly at her.

"Thank you!" I say happily before I ran underneath of the tree Levi was laying under.

His eyes were closed and he looked relaxed. I sat down a few feet away so I wouldn't disturb him, but his eyes snap open whenever I do so.

"What did you manage to get?" He asks me as he sits up.

"Turkey." I tell him.

"That's good I guess. Now let's go cook it."

Levi picks up the sack and carries it back to his place. He starts a fire in a small fire-pit that was in the corner underneath of a small window, which he opened to let out the smoke.

"Can you cook this for us?" He asks me sharply after he got the fire started.

"Sure." I reply and he motions with his hand for me to come over.

I placed the two turkey legs in the small kettle that was over the fire. Levi walks over to his bedroll and lays down on it. I had no idea his gaze was on me the whole time I cooked, but whenever I was done, we ate in silence. Levi cleaned up the mess quickly. 'He's really something else. A germaphobic criminal? Ha!' The thought made me snort in laughter.

"What's so funny?" Levi asks seriously, glaring at me.

"Do you really want to know?" I ask him as I stand up and walk over to him.

"Yes." He growls.

"The fact that you're a germaphobic criminal! It's hilarious." I smirk and poke his chest. He takes a step back from me.

"I did not give you permission to touch me." Levi says and adjusts his dark red shirt's collar.

I grin some more and step towards him and poke him once more. The way his expression seemed to darken was more than enough of a warning for me to get away from him. Before I moved a muscle, his hand latched onto my face as he pinched my cheek roughly.

"Ow, ow, ow." I said quietly as he glared at me. 'That's gonna leave a mark.'

He let go soon and flicked the small bruise he left on my face, making me wince in pain. He turns around and groans in an annoyed tone. "I don't know if I can stand having you around."

"If you can't even stand me, then I don't know how you're going to make it through training."

"True.." Levi trails off. He walks towards his bedroll, his boots making clicking sounds on the stone floor. He runs a hand through his black hair as he thinks.

"Are you staying here?" He finally says and turns to face me.

"That's up to you."

Levi blinks and stays quiet. "I really don't like the idea of making you sleep on the floor." He says after a few seconds of silence.

'He actually cares?!' I couldn't believe it.

"As long as it's clean, it's fine." I waved it off.

"Oh, alright then." Levi says and curls up to sleep on his bedroll without a second thought.

'What the hell? And here I was thinking he was starting to be nicer.' I mentaly cursed. I glanced out the little window that was above the fire-pit to see if it was even dark outside, and it wasn't. 'Levi must be tired after putting up with me all day. I feel bad for making him clean my wounds while I could have done it myself. I guess I'll go for a little walk until I get tired.'

I open and close the door as quietly as I could. It was a couple hours until dusk, so I have plenty of time to walk around. The busy streets from earlier weren't nearly as crowded, and people were walking home with their children. The thing that caught my eye was the old lady that was nice enough to give me food, and the woman with black hair that was talking to her. 'Oh no, oh please God no!' The woman turned her face a little, and that confirmed my suspicions. It's my mother.

My mother turned around, and started walking my way, but she hadn't noticed me yet. I whipped around and started running, but...

"Lilith!" My mother yells at me strictly. "Lili-chan, wait!" She then cries out desperately. I hear her sweet voice talking to a blonde man in a Stationary Guard uniform that I seen nearby her before I ran. In a matter of heartbeats, footsteps could be heard storming after me.

I told myself not to look back. I may not know this area very well since I only went here a few times with my mother to the markets, but I could at least trick the man chasing me. I made a left turn around the block, where there were two ways to go on the other side. I thought I would be home free until there was another guard ahead, and I had no way around him. This man seemed to be aware of the situation, and got ready to catch me.

"Fuck my life." I yelled angrily and barreled into the guard's chest, trying to knock him off of his feet but I did not succeed. His muscular arms grabbed mine and he twisted them behind my back. I twisted my body around and managed to bite his arm. I could feel him tense up but he tried not to show any signs that it hurt.

"Hannes! I got her." He called out to the blonde man coming towards us. Not far behind him was my mother, and I started spatting curses and screaming wildly like an injured animal.

"You shit-head! Let go of me!" I yelled desperately whenever my mom stood right in front of me.

"Thank you, sir. I'll take her now." My mother told the man and he released me, but then my mother grabbed my wrist roughly.

She dragged me harshly through the streets and hissed angrily at me. "You are in so much trouble, Lilith Eira Ackerman. I heard what you said to them, and you need to show more respect to the people who work hard to guard this place."

"Yeah, like they do such a good job sitting around drinking all day." I mumbled.

"Lilith!"

"Sorry."

She dragged me over to where our family's horse stood, tied to a post. She untied it and hopped up on it.

"Get on the back." She told me and I obeyed. "We'll talk whenever we get home."

It only took minutes until we arrived back at the cabin. I dreaded ever leaving Levi's cellar, because this time it will be harder than ever for me to sneak out. I usually jump out of the window in my room, but I think they'll make me sleep with them from now on. It doesn't matter, my mind is still set on joining the Scouting Legion, no matter how stupid they think it is.

"Where in the world have you been?" My father asked, more like yelled at me whenever he, my mom, and I sat at the table. Mikasa was in her room sleeping.

I covered my hands with my sleeve, trying to hide the bandages. My mother noticed this slight movement out of the corner of her eye and decides to question me about it as I avoid their gazes.

"What are you hiding?" I didn't reply.

"Answer your mother." My father said.

I look up at them, with overwhelming emotions swirling in my green eyes. I sit up straight in my chair, and let my bangs fall over part of my left eye. "I am hiding nothing that concerns you." I say, with my eyes narrowed at my mother.

"I'll ask you again. Where have you been?" My father asks.

"Do you really want to know?" I ask deviously, a smart ass plan forming in my mind.

"Yes Lilith." Both of my parents say.

"I've been hanging out with a criminal." I look down at the table and smirk, although they couldn't see it.

"You WHAT!?" My mother slams her hands on the table and jumps up.

"Life here is boring. Besides, you don't have to worry about me since I'm becoming strong enough to join the Scouting Legion." I tell them.

"Over my dead body you will!" My mother screams at me.

I stand up and smooth out my dress. "If that's what it takes, then I will make sure of that to happen." I tell her with no emotion on my face before I turn to walk towards my bedroom.

She stands there dumbfounded, staring after me with her mouth gaping wide open.

"You do not treat your mother that way." My father tells me.

"I only treat people the way they treat me. So mother, whenever the titans break down these walls, I don't want to hear you complain at all whenever I am the one fighting them instead of father." I say and walk away. I slam my door shut and move a dresser in front of it so they can't get in.

I go into my bathroom, throw away my bandages, take a shower, then I go to sleep. 'Hopefully they will understand now.' I roll over on my bed and look out of the window, up at the night sky. 'I'm glad that I met Levi. Even if I've only known him a day, he has taught me how to become a stronger person. I promise that I will one day venture outside of these walls keeping humans caged like animals.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

Whenever Lilith got up the next day, she found her family acting as normal as always around her. The argument from whenever she was brought back home was never mentioned again. Although Lilith hardly ever smiles anymore, she smiled the day whenever she had leave so she would make it in time to go join the Trainees, which was a day before the sign ups. She doesn't mention anything to her parents as she steps out the front door, carrying a sack with extra clothes and a hair brush on her back, early that day. The sun had barely risen, just enough light to see. She goes to the one-horse stable and saddles up the black horse that was her family's. She wore grey pants that way she wouldn't have to worry about the hassle of riding horseback with a dress or skirt on.

"Today's the day we leave. I wonder if Levi will be there? Gosh, I still feel awful because I never went to visit him again after Mother brought me home." She talks to herself and pulls on the reigns, spinning the horse around and riding full speed until she came out of the forest and into the streets. She slows the horse down to a trot as she rides past the merchant stalls to avoid running over people.

The kind old lady at the meat-stall gazed in astonishment as she seen the beautiful young woman ride by. In her many years of time, she knew what that determined look on Lilith's face meant, and she was quite shocked.

Lilith feels someone's gaze on her, and she looks out of the corner of her eye and sees the old lady. She half-waves at her and continues on her journey outside of Shiganshina, and into the inner Wall Maria.

Lilith travels on the clearest and shortest routes to make it to the Trost District faster. But halfway through the day, she stopped by a stream to let the horse eat, drink, and rest. The black haired beauty sits against a tree, worry free because she knew the horse wouldn't run off since it was friendly. Her eyes drift shut as she enjoys the cool autumn air.

The horse snorts and paws at the ground, warning Lilith that something was nearby. The sound of hooves on the dirt path made her eyes snap open. She was alert for danger, but it turns out it was just some teenagers around her age riding horses. They all had sacks strapped down on their saddles, which probably meant they were heading to the same place she was. Lilith was thankful that she didn't see many people heading the same way she did, so that she would have an easier time getting there without a ton of annoying people swarming around her.

Lilith decides it was about time to head out again, wanting to get there before dark, so she picks up the saddle and places it on the horse's back. She jumps on with ease, and makes sure she placed her sack properly on the side of the saddle before riding off. She didn't want the horse to get worn out, so she traveled mostly at a canter.

Around dusk, Lilith made it to the gate of the Trost. 'Now, where will I stay the night? There should be an inn around somewhere.' Lilith asks herself as she enters the city. 'But first I want to check around this place for somewhere to eat.' She rubs her growling stomach, and she was now glad that she had taken money from her parents. She told herself that it wasn't really stealing if they didn't know about it.

Lilith climbs out of the saddle, and takes the reigns into her aching hands to lead the horse around. Like in Shiganshina, and all other towns, there were merchant stalls. There were some street vendors, so she decides to eat there. She walks up to a random one since none of them were crowded this late in the day.

"What would you like, miss?" A middle aged man asks.

"A rabbit leg and a slice of bread." She replies after checking the menu on a blackboard.

"It'll be a few minutes for the rabbit." The man tells her how much it would be and she hands it over. Then he decides to start a small conversation with her while his friend cooks the food. "I heard the sign ups are tomorrow, is that where you're headed' to?"

Lilith nods.

"What made you choose that over normal life?"

"I want to travel to the outside world, so after I graduate I will join the Scouting Legion. If you want my honest thoughts, I want to kill." The man hands Lilith her food, and he decides to keep talking to her.

"I can see the determination in those cat-like eyes of your's." He said, smiling. Lilith nods a little and leads the horse to a tree, which she sits under.

Lilith wants to eat her food slowly so that she will get fuller quicker, but after a few bites she devoured it. She wipes her hands on the grass to clean them off. She gets back to her feet and leads the horse over to what looked like an inn with a place to keep horses next to it. Once Lilith gets there, a young man greets her with a smile, which she did not return.

"Would you like me to take care of your horse?"

"Yes, please." Lilith grabs her sack off of the saddle and then the man takes her horse to the stable area. Lilith walks inside of the inn, but before she makes it to the counter to rent a room, a couple of drunks get in her way, laughing and singing.

Lilith scowls at them. "Get out of my way." She says and walks around them. 'Thankfully I don't have to deal with them.'

The tan woman at the counter sighs whenever she walks up to her.

"Those drunks are here almost every night. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay." Lilith tells her and then she rents a room. The tan woman points to a hallway and says that it's the last door to the left. Lilith quickly navigates the hall to her room, and she couldn't wait to take a much needed shower.

She opens the wooden door and locks the hatch behind her, not trusting the place since there were drunks there. Lilith tosses her stuff onto her bed, then goes to take her shower. She turns on the water to let it warm up, and while she was waiting she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her skin was pale and looked like porcelain. Her long, straight black hair came down to her wide hips. Her bangs were sideswept to the left, but one lock fell down between her eyes like her younger sister Mikasa's, and a few locks of her hair framed her face. The color of her skin contrasted with her hair greatly, and the bright green color of her eyes which were surrounded by thick, dark eyelashes made her seem even more exotic and intriguing. Getting a tan is something she never wanted to do, because she loved the paleness of her skin.

Lilith stopped observing herself whenever the mirror fogged up, so she stepped into the shower.

* * *

Lilith gets up really early and packs her things. She walks out to the stables to get her horse, and saddles up immediately. She follows the other teenagers from a distance, since she really didn't know the way to the Military training camp, but it didn't take long for her to arrive. She was one of the first people there, and is instructed by her seniors to turn loose her horse in the fields with the others. Then they show her to the cabin she will be staying in for three years. A uniform was laying on every bunk, which included a Trainees jacket, white pants, knee-high boots, and the dark brown leather skirt-like piece with a belt.

Lilith grabs a grey long-sleeve shirt to put on and then puts on her uniform over it. The jacket wasn't tight around her growing breasts, and it was comfortable. Lilith hopes that they don't get too large and attract the attention of perverts.

To her happiness, only one other person arrived at her cabin, which was a brunette with glasses.

'She's too noisy and hyper for my liking. Even though she hasn't spoken yet, I can sense her hyper aura, and it's getting on my nerves.' Lilith said in her mind, nearly frowning at the thought.

"Hello! What's your name? I'm Hanji Zoe." Hanji asks Lilith with a smile on her face after changing into a uniform.

"You'll find out at the newbie's ceremony." Lilith says and turns her head away from her.

"Oh come on, surely someone as cute as you can't be so emotionless?" Hanji says, placing her hands on her hips and making a pouty face.

"I'm cute?" Lilith asks, looking back at her.

"Yup! Almost as cute as a titan!" Lilith swears hearts appeared in Hanji's big brown eyes whenever she said "titan".

Someone knocks on the cabin's door and says that it was time for the ceremony. Lilith sighed but got ready to face the crowd. But when she steps out, there wasn't as many people as she expected standing there. The cheif instructor, Keith Shadis, was already going around and scaring people to death by yelling at him.

'He's got another thing coming if he yells at me. I'll yell right back at him.' Lilith declares and steps into the formation, keeping her hands clasped behind her back like everyone else.

The line of people in front of her start whispering about how Keith used to be a commander of the Scouting Legion until a man named Irvin Smith took over. Lilith ignored this no matter how badly she wanted to listen, so that she could stay calm and collected so that the instructor wouldn't pick on her. The last thing she wanted was attention being drawn to herself, but she doesn't always get her way.

"Who the hell are you?!" He yells at Lilith, who glares back at the bald man. She stayed calm even though there were so many eyes on her.

"Who the hell are you?" She says the smart-alec remark with no expression on her face. Before she came here, she decided to change her attitude towards most people, especially ones she didn't like at first sight.

Gasps could be heard from the small crowd, but Keith's hard gaze silenced them. Lilith places her right fist over her heart, and the other behind her back in the salute, trying to agitate the instructor even more than she already had.

"Tell me who the fuck you are!" He yells once more at her.

"You answer me first. I don't like talking to strangers without knowing who they are." She tells him.

Some people contained their laughs, while others snorted or giggled. Some even admired Lilith for her courage to stand up to Keith.

"I am your instructor, Keith Shadis." He actually talked normally, seeming to finally get Lilith's point.

"I am Lilith. Lilith Ackerman from northern Shiganshina."

"Well then Lilith, why the hell are you here, you piece of shit?!" Keith yells at her once more, and Lilith was starting to get really annoyed.

"I am not in the shape of shit or the color. Therefor I am not a piece of shit. But if you want to know why I am here, it's because I want to travel outside of these walls with the Scouting Legion, so that I can kill fucking titans!" Lilith says loudly, but in a proud tone of voice.

The instructor grabs Lilith and picks her up by the collar of her shirt and yells right in her face.

"This is it. I am tired of your smart ass mouth!"

"Put me down." She says quietly, but not submitting into fear.

Instead of doing what she told him to, he holds her there longer just to annoy her. She then knees him in the groin, making them both drop to the ground. Lilith gets to her feet quickly and steps away from the man that was barreled over. He stands up quickly, but still not fully recovered from the blow, and points at Lilith.

"You! You don't get any food today!" He yells then moves on, slowly.

* * *

After the ceremony was lunch, and while everyone else went into the cafeteria to eat and fool around before torture starts, Lilith sits down under a shade tree and takes a nap, since there was nothing else to do. She hadn't even noticed Levi during the ceremony because she was busy being a smart-alec.

And that certain person sat down beside the sleeping Lilith holding a piece of bread. She felt the eerie presence, and opened her eyes to see the teen that she hadn't seen in a while sitting next to her. She looks up at the dark sky, and stretches before talking.

"Looks like I was asleep all day." Lilith says to Levi.

"Here. Some annoying girl told me to give this to you." He says and hands her the piece of bread, and she eats it slowly and awkwardly.

"You lied, didn't you? Haha." He turns his head in the other direction as Lilith giggles a little.

"You didn't have to act like that to the instructor." Levi says to change the subject.

"Well, someone needed to stand up to him."

"You didn't even flinch like I thought you would whenever he yelled at you." He leans over and flicks her cheek, where the bruise used to be, and she stays still.

"My mother found me that day..." Lilith says quietly.

"I thought I heard someone screaming curses, but I thought it was just a dream." Levi joked, cheering Lilith up a little.

"Come on, I'll walk you to your cabin." Levi says whenever he stands up and dusts off his pants. He offers Lilith a hand and she takes it. Whenever she walks past other people, she realized that she was the only one still in her uniform because she had fallen asleep.

"Do you think your hair will be a problem with using the 3D maneuver gear?" The black headed teen asks Lilith.

"As long as I can move like a cat, it wont be." Was her reply. "See you tomorrow Levi." She pats his shoulder, gives him a small smile, and leaves his side. His blue-ish gaze follows after her, admiring how her raven hair swished with every step she took. He hated to admit it, but he found himself growing more attached to her each time they spoke. Such feelings could be considered a weakness, well for him anyways. As he walks towards his own cabin for the night, he hopes that nothing bad will happen to Lilith during training, or afterwards.

* * *

'I really don't like the thought of other people hooking me to ropes. I don't want to be touched by them at all. But at least they didn't have to put the belts on me.' Lilith frowns as she would be next in line to see if she could balance correctly, a crucial step for properly using the Maneauver Gear. To her it looked easy enough, and she was thankful that she was good at balancing. The last thing she wanted was to fail and be sent to the landfills or back home.

"You're up next, Ackerman!" Keith yells at her.

"I can see that." She hisses as she walks to the ropes.

"I hope you fall down." He bellows at her.

"I hope you fall off a cliff so I wont have to see you again." Was her reply.

Her senior Trainees snapped the hook on each side of her, and then she was hoisted up into the air. Lilith gets butterflies in her stomach at first, and then she sees that she was balancing perfectly. It was like she was floating upwards, and she likes the feeling. She barely rocks back and forth, and she places on hand on her hip and the other by her side. She doesn't keep her gaze on the crowd in front of her, because it would make her feel nervous and she would lose her balance, but she keeps it on the ground.

Hanji runs over to stand beside of Levi, who was also watching Lilith. Hanji had already went, as well as Levi, and she passed, almost perfect, and she wanted to see how her room-mate was doing, despite how bitter she is.

"She's perfect!" Hanji exclaims excitedly.

Levi nodded in agreement. Lilith was lowered back to the ground. She couldn't wait until tomorrow, because they actually got to use the Maneuver Gear. As she walks briskly past some guys, one says to her, "Smile for once, you should be happy that you passed."

"The only time I will smile is whenever you fall on your face." She tells him. He was shocked to hear her bitter tone, so he didn't say anything else to her.

Lilith walks over to Levi and Hanji.

"Good job!" Hanji says happily.

"Thanks." She says. "Now I'm going to go take a nap.." Lilith tells them quietly.

"But you just got up a few hours ago." Levi says, rolling his eyes.

"I know, but I just don't feel like myself today." Lilith says.

"I'll go with you. I don't trust the people here." Levi walks with her.

Hanji laughs to herself as they start to walk away. "They're so cute~"

"Hanji." Lilith spins around and glares at the tall brunette.

"It's the truth." Lilith stares down at her feet, fighting the blush on her cheeks.

Levi's cool hands lift up Lilith's face so that she is forced to look at him. "You're burning up." He says.

"Because she is blushing!" Hanji laughs hysterically.

"Q-Quit making a scene." Lilith stutters as she loses her normally bitter-calm composure. This only causes Hanji to laugh even more. This attracts the attention of a few people, who give them curious glances at the sight of Levi's hands on Lilith's blushing face, and Hanji's booming laughter.

Lilith looks into Levi's slate colored eyes, and she blinks sadly. He understood that she wanted to get away and grabbed her by the wrist and they ran off together. In the background, Hanji grins and walks over to the curious Trainees.

"Ackerman was actually nervous? Hanji, what happened to make her like that?" A tiny girl with light orange hair questions.

"Levi confessed to her." Hanji states like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"What?!" The group of people were shocked, and they believed Hanji's lie.

"I was joking! I just told them they looked cute together is all." The group of teens sweat-drop.

* * *

Lilith's chest rose up and down softly as she regained her breath. Levi and her were both laying under a tree. He was more in shape than she was, so the quick dash didn't affect him. After her breathing is back to normal, she talked to Levi.

"I don't think I'd like the feeling of being watched whenever I sleep."

Levi gave a small smile.

"Can I use you as a pillow?" Lilith asks shyly, afraid he would get mad at her.

"I guess so."

He moves around so that Lilith could lay her head comfortably on his muscular shoulder. She does so and closes her eyes. He could tell she was tired; Hanji must have kept her up most of the night annoying her, and he smiled softly at the peacefullness on her porcelain face. Her black hair tickled his chin, but he didn't mind. He found himself trying hard to stay awake after a while, but he let sleep consume him. Lilith had warmed his heart, and it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"Bahahaha!" Hanji laughs.

"Shh, be quiet. They'll wake up." An orange headed girl whispers.

"Someone should go get them a blanket." Hanji jokes.

"Oh hush, the instructor would have their hides if they didn't make it back to their cabins by midnight. Someone will have to wake them up." A teen boy with light brown hair says in his deep voice.

"But look how cute they are together!" Hanji protests.

Little did they know, both of them were awake but they were just listening to the conversation of Hanji and some other people. Lilith peeks open an eye to observe the situation. Hanji, a petite girl with orange hair, and a tall boy with light brown hair stood there talking. The sky was completely dark, and the only things lighting the area were lanterns.

Lilith notices that they aren't looking at her right now, so she decides to scare them while their backs are turned to her. She snakes an arm over to the person standing closest to her, which happened to be the orange head, and prods her leg, but barely touches it at the same time. She quickly lowers her arm back down to her side.

"KYA!" The orange headed girl jumps onto Hanji.

"What's wrong Petra?" The boy asks her, worried.

"Something just touched me Erd!" Petra squeaks to him.

Erd looks around and sees nothing except the usual stuff you find on the ground.

"She was probably just imagining it." Hanji says with a smile.

"Oh yeah, before I forget, Hanji, can I move into your cabin? Mine is overcrowded, and it's mostly full of our seniors." Petra asks sweetly as she lets Hanji go.

"I don't mind! But Ackerman over there might."

"It's Lilith." Lilith says darkly as she stands right behind the trio. She had gotten to her feet silently. Levi sat up against the back of the tree and watched.

For the second time in minutes, Petra had jumped in fright. Hanji puts a hand on Lilith's shoulder and looks down at the raven haired beauty.

"So do ya' mind if Petra Ral over here moves in with us?" Lilith replies with a shrug and stares into Petra's wide golden eyes.

"As long as you don't interfere with my sleeping, I do not mind." Lilith tells her, in a tone of voice a bit kinder than usual.

"Did you hear that, Lilith sounded nice!" Hanji was being her usual hyper self.

Levi stands by Lilith's side protectively, as though the other people around them was trying to hurt her. "She's always nice, unless you upset her."

"You guys are talking about me like I'm some animal." Lilith says with a frown.

"You can act like one at times." Levi says to her. She elbows him in the side gently.

Lilith decides it's time to make a few friends, but not get attached to any of them more than she is with Levi. Too many friendships cause problems, especially if something happens to one of them. She walks over and stands between Hanji and Petra, puts on the best smile for them as she can, and waves goodbye to Levi and Erd.

"Don't tell anyone else that I can smile." Lilith tells them in a hushed tone once they get back to their cabin, making the other two girls laugh a little.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows! **

* * *

**Chapter 3:**

The pounding of hooves against dirt rang through Lilith's ears. Below her, the instructor rode on his horse to keep up with the Trainees using their maneaver gear. Lilith presses the button to send out more gas as she glides through the air, way ahead of the others. She twisted in mid air like a cat would when falling out of a tree, and she pretended that she had swords in her hands and she twirled and slashed the imaginary titan's neck. The length of her hair was no problem with using the gear properly, as she suspected, but all of the other girls were too scared to try it and either cut their's or put it in a ponytail.

She shot a grappling hook into a tree in front of her, and she enjoyed the feel of wind whipping her face as the trees around her became a blur as she zoomed through the forest. Lilith does a backflip and swoops towards the ground. She shoots the hook back towards the top of another tree just before her face collides with the ground, and she glides back up through the trees.

'I better quit fooling around and use the gear normally.' Despite months of training, she still liked to act as though titans were around, but this was only if none of the others were nearby.

"Lilith Ackerman!" The instructor's booming voice said from far behind her. She waves a hand to let him know she heard him. "You're almost through the forest, be prepared to land!" Lilith can clearly see that, and holds back the urge to stick up her middle finger at him. She wasn't blind at all.

"Out of everything we have done here so far, landing is my least favorite thing to do." Lilith sighs and slows down a lot to prepare to land.

She hooks the trunk of the last tree, and swoops down to the ground, rolling to evade any injuries from the fall. She gets back to her feet and dusts herself off, and runs a hand through her smooth hair to get out any tangles it may have gotten. Luckily for her, it wasn't likely to tangle easily.

Lilith had enough time to get far enough away so that she would not be hit by the people trying to land. Hanji had clumsily tackeled right into her once, knocking the breath out of her, and that was the very first time they used the gear. So she knew from experience that she had to go towards the well on the edges of the camp to wait for her friends.

Levi was the next person to land, and he did it perfectly without having to roll. Lilith was jealous of how graceful he seemed as he landed neatly, while her's probably looks sloppy. He quickly walks over to her.

"First again?" He asks her, rolling his eyes playfully.

"It's not my fault that the other's like to fool around the whole time."

"Like you should talk. I seen you doing backflips." Levi retorted.

"Why were you watching me anyways?" Lilith's cheeks turn a light shade of pink, and Levi nervously looks away from her.

Luckily for them, Hanji saved them from the awkward moment as she landed yelling happily.

"Yahooooo!" She screams.

Erd and Petra arive soon after, and the three of them walk over to Levi and Lilith. Their instructor watches them from a distance, and he somehow finds himself proud that those five were trained by him.

'That Ackerman will no doubt be in the top of her class. She's the best at using the 3DMG, but her bitterness towards others is something to be warry of. Levi is just as good as Lilith, if not better because he is physically stronger than her, as I have seen during their jogs through the forest. Hanji Zoe is hyper and often does not care about her own safety, but she's the smartest of the class and likes to learn about titans. Petra Ral is always warry of herself and others, and her kindness would be a great relief to others on her team. Erd Gin doesn't speak much, but what he lacks in social skill he makes up for in combat. They'll have to do hand-to-hand combat tomorrow so I can observe if they have changed since the last time.'

* * *

Lilith takes a few bites from her soup at lunch, but finds it too bland for her taste. She hopes something better will be on the menu at dinner. She sits alone with a whole table to herself because the others were still waiting for their food. Lilith chugs down a glass of water before some girl walks over. The girl folds her arms under her chest and smirks at Lilith. Lilith could already tell this person was wanting to start a fight.

"Can't it wait until training tomorrow?" Lilith asks, getting annoyed.

"You think you're so big and bad just because you can use your gear better than the rest of us!" The person exclaims.

"You should just learn to use it better instead of spending all of your time socializing." Lilith hisses the comback, and the whole cafeteria turns their heads to see the fight.

"And you have the stupidest smart ass remarks."

Lilith decides to end this before anything else happens. She stands up quickly, and jabs the girl right in the throat to make her shut up. The girl coughs and her hands clench her throat in pain. She walks away from Lilith without another word.

"Nyahahaha! Lilith's at it again Levi. You should control her better." Hanji and the rest of the group walks over just in time to see what happened. Everyone sits down at the table, and the cafeteria soon becomes loud with chatter as it was once before.

"She can do whatever she wants, she controls her own thoughts and actions." Levi says to Hanji and starts to eat his soup. As always, he is the only one that sits beside Lilith. The others sit across from them.

"Oh-ho," Hanji smirks and winks at Lilith, "What kinds of thoughts?"

Lilith props her head on her hand and answers Hanji sweetly. "Oh, I don't know, just the ones where I want to kill other people. Did you have something else in mind?"

"On second thought, I don't." Hanji says in a normal voice and Petra laughs.

After lunch was time to do normal, boring things. Like clean the cafeteria before dinner, feed and water the horses and other animals, clean the cabins, check your gear and belts for any rust, ect. Lilith was glad that she got to see her horse once more, and she couldn't wait to ride her again, but this time she hoped it would be whenever she joins the Scouting Legion.

Afterwards, everyone goes to change out of their uniforms and into casual clothing. Lilith prefered to wear pants over dresses, and always wears a button up shirt or a sweater with them. Dinner is more noisy than lunch because it's the end of the day. Lilith eats her food quickly, and goes outside to stand on the porch. She leans on the wooden rails, enjoying the quietness, until a hand came down on her butt. She knew automatically who it was.

"Hanji? What the hell?"

"You looked lonely out here." She says.

"I like being alone sometimes."

"I've noticed." Hanji grins and starts teasing Lilith. "With a fine ass like that, I don't know how Levi can resist~" And of course, Levi happens to walk out just whenever Hanji says that.

"Hanji!" Lilith and Levi yell in unison, but Levi with an angry voice and Lilith with an embarrassed one.

Hanji laughs and runs back in the cafeteria to get away from the two angry people.

"They get so annoying at times." Lilith sighs whenever Levi stands next to her.

"Mhmm. I wonder which of us will win if we're paired up tomorrow?" Levi asks.

"Fortunatley for me, we never have been paired up before." Lilith tells him.

"You always get stuck with the lazy people."

"I know," Lilith pauses to yawn, "And I always kick their asses too."

Levi nods and walks off of the porch. He stops and looks back at Lilith. "Are you coming?" He asks her, and she hurries to his side. Levi walks her to her cabin like he does every night. But this time, after Lilith confirms no one is within sight, she stops Levi before he walks away.

"Come in for a little while. No one will see you." Levi couldn't say no to her, and walks in. The interior of every cabin was the same, but he could tell that the cleanest corner was were Lilith stayed. She walks over to her bed, takes off her boots, and jumps up to the top bunk, where she sat cross legged. She pats the spot next to her, and Levi climbs up and lets his legs dangle over the edge.

"Why did you want me to come in here?" Levi starts a conversation.

Lilith shrugs as she looks at him. "I'm tired, and I wanted you to tuck me in."

Levi stares at her like she was crazy. "Are you kidding me?" She replies with a shake of her head, and he sighs. "Why does it have to be me of all people?"

"Because you're my favorite out of all people, and plus you're warm, and I'd like to rest easily knowing that you did something nice for me." Lilith says and smiles at him.

"Alright. Do you want me to tell you a story too?" Levi said sarcastically as Lilith curls into a ball and lays her head on the pillow.

"Nope." She tells him.

Levi pulls the blankets over her and then leans back. "Anything else Lilith?" He asks.

Her breathing slowed down and she never replied. She fell asleep quickly, so Levi sneaks out of the cabin before her room-mates came back from dinner.

The next day everyone gathered with their assigned partners. Since Keith wanted the best to fight the best, and he wanted to see a fight that wasn't boring and over with in seconds, he made Lilith fight with Erd. He wants her to fight Levi afterwards, if she wins.

Erd towers over Lilith, nearly a head taller than her, but it didn't frighten her. She notices the instructor actually watching for once, and he seemed to be interested in her fight. Lilith bends her legs slightly, ready to spring into action.

Erd was the first to make a move. He put a lot of force into a punch he threw at Lilith's face, and she ducks under him. While ducking, Lilith springs upwards and elbows Erd in the chest, then in the stomach with her other elbow to knock the breath out of him and weaken his guard. She jumps out of range before he could counter. Lilith knows to play her cards wisely before attacking, because Erd had the advantage of height and power.

Erd charges at her, throwing another punch, but this one didn't have much force behind it as it was meant to distract her while he threw a more powerful one with his other hand. She happened to catch on and barely evaded both punches, ducking down once more. She shoots up a powerful kick right under his jaw seconds before he attempted to hit her again. Erd tumbles backwards from the blow and Lilith straightens back up instead of finishing him off. She wanted to see if he could match her speed, but her cat-like reflexes made it nearly impossible for him to.

Nearby, Levi had beaten Petra quickly with little struggle, and they both paused to watch Lilith's fight before finding another opponent.

"Wow," Petra says astonished, "She's holding her own against Erd."

"Once she sets her mind on doing something, she doesn't give up. Whenever I first met her, she tried to kill two kids that was beating a cat." Levi tells her.

"Have you known her for a long ti-"

"Gyah!" Lilith screeches as Erd managed to get behind her and grab her in a choke hold. He had gotten one of his muscular arms around her neck, and the other was on her shoulder. Petra had been cut off by the screech, and she thought that Lilith sounded like she was in pain. She seen the worried look in Levi's eyes.

Lilith and Erd's fight by now had caught the attention of every trainee as they watched how Lilith struggled. She either had to tap out and admit defeat, or escape somehow. She chooses the latter, not wanting to put a dent in her pride in front of everyone. She turns her head towards the crook of Erd's elbow to get a little bit of breathing room, and she places one hand on the arm wrapped around her neck and the other on his shoulder as she bends her knees slightly. With all of her strength, she drives her hips upwards to knock him onto her back, and she throws him to the ground, gasping for breath. She slams a foot on his chest to hold him down as she pants. In the corner of her eyes her vision was starting to get blurry, and her whole body ached from throwing him to the ground. But despite this, she was proud of herself because she had escaped, but barely in time before she was knocked out.

Hanji started clapping loudly, and so did most of the others. Lilith was embarrassed, but she was too tired to care. She turns her head to look at the instructor, who also seemed surprised at Erd's defeat, but he then yells at the others.

"What the fuck do you think you're looking at? Get back to training! Ackerman, you fight Levi next."

Lilith walks away from Erd, letting Petra help him up. Her heart was still pounding from adrenaline. Levi looks at her with concern.

"Are you sure you don't need to rest first?"

"N-No, I'm fine. I was looking foward to fighting you for the first time anyways." Lilith huffs out tiredly.

"Alright, but I'm not going easy on you." Levi says and gets in a fighting stance.

'Get yourself together. Just one more hard fight and then you wont have to worry about the others you go up against.' Lilith tells herself mentally, but finding no new strength as her muscles grow more tired with every breath she takes.

Lilith goes to elbow Levi in the chest, but he grabs her arm and twists it. She winces, but tries not to show any sign of pain. She kicks him in the stomach to get him away from her. She decides to try something new and ducks quickly and grabs him behind the knees, and she barges her shoulder into his stomach, sending them both to the ground. Lilith immediately regrets doing that, because the position they were in. She was halfway up his body and between his legs. Lilith's face turns scarlet, and she jumps away from him. She noticed his face had a slight blush on it too, but he recovered and got back to his feet.

Right away, he karate chops the back of her neck, sending her down to her knees, where he kicks her back and sends her right to the ground. Lilith didn't even struggle to get back up, but this somewhat worried him and he crouches down to see if she was knocked out. From the looks of her face, she was, but Levi didn't know that this was a trick so that she could win in one move.

Lilith pounces right onto Levi, tackeling him to the ground. She sits on his chest and smiles down at his face, while pinning both of his arms above his head. Locks of her hair falls down around him.

"You got lucky this time, Lilith." He scowls at her, making her smile even wider, but then it drooped as her eyes closed and she fell forward. She decided to give into the darkness that seemed comforting to her, and she passes out right on Levi.

He gently lays her on the ground so he can get up, then he picks her up and throws her over a shoulder. He kept her secure there by placing a hand on the small of her back, and he hoped that Hanji would not make a joke about this. Luckily for him, Hanji or the others did not see as he packed Lilith to a shady spot under a tree. He noticed she liked to take naps under trees, so he decided that would be the best place to put her.

He propped her up against the trunk, and started wiping the dirt off of her face. Inside he felt like some sort of stalker. In reality, Lilith wouldn't mind at all that Levi was taking care of her once again.

Levi notices some bruises on the side of her neck from where Erd had flexed his biceps to get a better hold, and he curiously runs his fingers across them to see if he could get a reaction out of her. His cool touch sent chills up her spine, and she shivered. Her pretty green eyes opened slightly as she woke up, and she blinks in confusion at Levi.

"What happened?" She asks him.

"You beat me and then you passed out. You have only been out for a few minutes, and I'm not going to let you do anything the rest of the day." Levi strictly tells her.

"I'm fine Levi." Lilith tells him, raising her voice slightly and pokes his chest, and in return he pinches her cheek.

Lilith pushes herself off of the ground and stands up slowly. She grips the tree for support as her head ached from the sudden movement.

"If you're going to go do something, I'm going with you to make sure you don't get hurt." Levi says to Lilith, and she smirks to herself.

"You're going to go take a shower with me?" She gets up in his face and asks with an arrogant smirk.

Levi shoves her away and shakes his head. He shoved her a little too harshly because she hit the tree behind them.

"I'll take that as a no." Lilith mutters and rubs the back of her head.

"You can go do that after lunch, come on." Levi tells her that she needs to drink plenty of water and eat something to help her get her energy back.

Instead of rushing to get to the cafeteria first so that she could avoid the crowd, she was one of the last there and didn't like the feeling of people's gaze on her as she walked by them with Levi. They grabbed their food and sat down at the usual table.

"You two are later than usual." Erd says to them.

"Where have you two been? I noticed you guys left training early." Hanji grins at them.

Levi places a hand on Lilith's shoulder, seeing that she looked sad. She flinches under the touch, which did not go unnoticed by the others.

"Sorry." Levi apologizes.

Lilith gives him a small smile.

"What's wrong with you, Lilith?" Petra asks kindly. Lilith turns her gaze to the pretty girl with golden eyes.

"My muscles are sore from training earlier. Erd over there put quite the strain on my shoulders and back whenever I broke out of that choke hold. You should be proud of yourself for almost beating me. Look at the bruises you left." Lilith tries to make the situation seem less important than it really was. She tucks her hair behind an ear and points to the bruises on the side of her pale neck.

Hanji whispers so that only their group could hear her. "How do we know that Levi didn't leave those marks instead?" Levi and Lilith glare at Hanji.

"Hanji!" Petra says and shakes her head at her like she did something wrong, which she did.

"What?!" Hanji replies in an annoyed tone. "Don't you find it odd that they both went missing at the same time?"

"Be quiet Hanji! Lilith and I were fighting, and right after she beat me she passed out from exhaustion so I carried her and sat her down underneath of a tree, then she woke back up." Waves of anger sparked off of Levi.

Despite how many times Hanji embarrasses them, they never get so mad at her that they stop talking to her. She was a cool person to be around, except whenever she acts like Levi and Lilith are a couple.

Levi kept his promise that he would not let Lilith work the rest of the day, so he took care of her horse for her while she dozed off under a tree once again after she took a shower. He comes back once he was done with his chores and her's, just before dinner to wake her up. He crouches down and prods her cheek, and she jumps awake, staring around wildly and she grips Levi's arms, then looks at his face and sighs in relief.

"Oh, it's just you Levi."

"What's the matter Lilith?" He didn't mind her touching him, since he knew she was a clean person.

"Just a nightmare." She says to him.

"Care to tell me what it was about?" She sits her hands in her lap as she sat cross legged. Levi sits down beside her.

"It was a normal dream at first, after we graduated. I went back to my home to visit my family, and once I get there, I see that blood was splattered all over the door. I was catious as I walked in, and I found both of my parents dead inside. My younger sister was missing, and as I checked around to see if she was still there, someone grabbed me from behind and held a cloth to my face. I struggled to get free, but then I started getting sleepy, and then you woke me up." Lilith turns her head to the side to see his reaction. He throws an arm around her shoulders, but more gently this time.

"You know that you wouldn't let that happen to yourself, so don't worry about it." He says with his face close to Lilith's.

"You're right..." She says quietly, staring into his blue-grey eyes. She was trapped in them, and they seemed to be staring into her soul.

Levi leans back away from her and rubs the back of his neck nervously. "Show me where you're the most sore." He tells her, and she wonders what he was going to do. She points to her upper back and shoulders. Before Levi says anything, he makes sure no one is around for some reason.

He crouches down and massages her sore shoulders and back.

Lilith closes her eyes and enjoys the massage. Once Levi stopped, he didn't move, but he leans forward and growls in Lilith's ear.

"Don't let anyone know about this." His voice sent chills down her spine.

"I didn't plan on it." She replies and they stand up. 'He needs to stop making me feel all weird and stuff.' Her mind tries to tell her that she liked him more than a friend, but she blocked it out for now.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N- For those of you that told me that Levi is OOC, well that is what I intended to do. He becomes more cold whenever he's older; and Lilith is just a hateful person haha.**

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

During Squad 97's second winter at the training grounds (their third year is focused on fighting titans) they had to hike up a mountainous are covered with snow, and back down. The goal was to get back to the camp by midnight, and to make sure that the group traveled all the way up the hills and cliffs, they had to bring back a lantern. So, if they didn't make it up the mountain by nightfall, they had no way to see where they were going. The instructor made sure it was a challenge by putting certain people in certain groups, and his favorite out of all of them was Levi, Lilith, and Petra.

He wonders how two oddballs would cope with a kind person, and this was necessary to see if they would still be at the top of their class whenever they graduated the next year. Each group was allowed a sled with a sleeping bag strapped to it, just in case if one of them got injured or so forth. If not all the teams returned by morning, he would assign several people for a rescue group.

Lilith leads her group, trudging through the snow that came up to her knees. She tries to stay on top of it, but in some not-so-firm areas, she sinks down. She had volunteered first in her group to scout ahead to see where the best paths are up the hills. Petra was about a hundred yards behind her, and Levi was the one pulling the sled.

Several hours had already passed and Lilith was starting to get tired, but they were only a couple miles away from the cliff they had to climb to get the lantern. The cold didn't bother her since she loves cold weather, but Petra was shaking a lot more than she should. Once at the top of the hill they were climbing, Lilith leans against a dead tree while she waits for the rest of her team.

They rest for about ten minutes, all of them sitting down on the dry sled. Lilith stands up and stands in front of Petra. She takes off her green cloak and hands it to her.

"Take it. I love this kind of weather, so I don't need it." Petra didn't argue and put it over her own cloak.

"Let's head out." Levi says, grabbing the rope to pull the sled.

Around sunset, the sky started to cloud up, leaving them with little light. Lilith could see the lanterns twinkle in the distance. She halts in her tracks and turns around to address the other two members of her team.

"I'll run up ahead and grab the lantern, stay right here." She tells them. Levi took a step forward, but then he stood still once Lilith glared at him.

Lilith dissappears behind the snow covered trees. The cold wind had started blowing, and Levi knew that by now she had to be cold, even if she liked this weather.

"Stop worrying about her so much; I'm sure she'll be fine. What happens whenever you're fighting a titan, and you see her in trouble. That is what get's people killed, Levi." Petra tells him with a stern expression.

"You're probably right.."

* * *

Petra writes letters to her father often, and in them she hints that she likes a young man that she is training with. But, this person cares about another girl so much more than anything else; and this girl is really pretty, strong, and smart. Petra wishes that Lilith would accept the fact that Levi has feelings for her, instead of pushing them away, which will eventually hurt him. She can tell that they care for one another, but they just wont accept it because of their pride. If something happens to Lilith that ruins those two forever, Petra swears upon her heart that she will be there for Levi.

* * *

Lilith runs up the hill and jumps onto the side of the cliff. She latches on, and finds foot-holes to climb up. It wasn't that hard for her to climb it, which she did quickly, but hauling herself over the sharp edge was challenging. Once she got herself safe on the top, she sits there and regains her breath.

Lilith stands and walks over to where the ten lanterns were, and she finds it odd that no one else has gotten their's yet. She pushes away the thought and bends down to pick up the closest lantern. The wind was blowing loudly so she couldn't hear as three people sneaks out from behind a large rock. Lilith prepares herself to jump off the cliff, planning to roll down the hill in the snow, whenever two large hands shove her right off the edge. Her lantern crashed onto the snow below.

'Remember your training Lilith!' Her mind screams and she twists in mid-air so that she would hit the snow, rolling. But she was still shocked that someone had pushed her, so whenever she stops rolling, she gets up quickly to defend herself. Her senses didn't detect anything near her, which she could hardly see with the snow blowing all around.

A glinting light reminds her that she had dropped her lantern, and when she picks it up, the glass on it was cracked but the light was thankfully still going. Whoever had shoved her off clearly had the intention of making her lantern break so that they would get the highest score for being first back to the camp.

"Stupid FUCKERS!" Lilith yells the second word more loudly than the first, and her blood boiled with rage. "Whenever I find out who the hell did this, I will not hold back." She mutters and trudges back down the hill.

She didn't even make it back to where she had told her team mates to stay, because Levi came running towards her and looked her over.

"Did something happen? I heard you yelling."

"Some assholes shoved me off of the cliff! They managed to crack the lantern, but it's not broken like they intended."

"You aren't hurt are you?" Petra asks, and she shakes her head.

"Just a bit cold, but I'll be fine. We need to hurry back before those assholes beat us." Lilith grabs the sled and starts running down the hill, holding the lantern with the other hand to light the way.

Levi runs after her, telling her to let him pull the sled. Petra ran too, not wanting to be left behind.

"Hold it!" Lilith says and stops in her tracks. She clearly had an idea, because Levi read her like an open book.

"This sled is big enough for the three of us to ride on. To get down quicker, I suggest that we hop on."

Levi mentally face-palmed and Petra stares wide-eyed at Lilith.

"Why didn't I think of that earlier?" He asks himself.

"We'll go faster if you sit on the front, Levi." Lilith tells him and he sits on the front. Lilith hops on the middle, holding the lantern in one hand, and wrapping the other around Levi's shoulders. Petra gets on the back and shyly places her hands on Lilith's shoulders, and Lilith turns around and smirks deviously.

"It's okay, I don't bite." She says as she licks her lips, then she giggles a little. She only acted like this around people she likes.

* * *

Levi lifts his legs and places them on the sides of the sled, and then it slides down the hill. They lean to the left or right to avoid trees, which Petra was the one warning them which way to lean. Lilith had her face burried into the back of Levi's neck, not meaning to press her upper body against him. He ignored it as he focuses on evading trees.

They made it to the bottom of the many hills they had climbed in less than an hour because Lilith's idea. She's the first to jump off and she grabs it's rope from Levi's grip and she pulls them towards the main hall, where they were to meet up at. Lilith turns and glares whenever Levi and Petra try to hop off, so they both sit still and enjoy the free ride.

Levi jumps off and opens the door for his team mates, and they all are blasted by warm air from the main hall. Lilith hates this, Petra enjoys it, and Levi could really care less.

Lilith runs over to where the instructor was sitting at a table drinking water with the lantern, and she slams it down in front of him. He glares up at her.

"You're the first back, congragulations." He says, not happy at all. "But how did this get cracked?" He asks Lilith, looking over the lantern.

Lilith lies about it. "I tripped over some loose rocks on the cliff and fell off."

"You're not one to be clumsy." He says, starting to get suspicious.

"The wind was blowing snow in my eyes and I couldn't see my feet, sir." The fact that Lilith actually called Keith "sir" meant that she was telling the truth, because she never said that to him before.

"Whatever. Leave the sled and lantern here and go to your cabins." He tells them hatefully.

None of the other people had gotten lost, and they all came back before midnight.

* * *

Since they trainees had to be prepared to fight in any kind of weather, Keith decided that winter would be best to train them for attacking the wooden titans. Lilith itched with excitement because she finally got to do what she had always wanted to do here. Keith's assistants were on the ground controlling the wooden beasts, making them move around like a real titan would. Today they was supposed to get used to making the perfect strikes on the back of the neck, and they could work in groups or do it solo.

Once the signal was given, Lilith was the first to take off, pressing the gas button hard so that she could get far ahead of the others. The first titan was coming up, and Lilith shoots the grappling hook to the tree on the opposite side, and as she glides through the air behind it, she spins and makes a clean, deep slice. The foam popped off and falls to the ground, and Lilith runs off to take down another.

After "killing" five of them. Lilith stops on a branch and looks behind her. Some of the others weren't far behind her, and some were having trouble getting their grip on the trees for landing because they were slick with ice and snow.

Levi spots one close to Lilith, and he swoops down and makes an expert slice. Lilith spots him and gets mad because he was now ahead of her, just because she stopped for a few seconds.

Lilith starts to pursue him, taking down any of the ones that got in her way. She stops landing on the branches and just shoots through the air until she catches up with Levi. They race through the forest. Both of them come out at the same time, and even land together. Lilith sheathes her swords and gets out of the way before the other trainees make it through the forest too. Levi catches up with her and they both walk towards the cafeteria for lunch, complimenting each other on how good they were.

* * *

Just about a month before the graduation ceremony at the end of summer, Levi and Lilith walk to dinner after they got done with their hand-to-hand combat lesson that took place after lunch for once. Levi had beaten Lilith for the first time, and her back was killing her from having the shit kicked out of her.

Levi and Lilith sit down together for dinner, and soon came the other three people of their group. Lilith ate quickly so that she could answer questions if they had any.

"So Lilith, how has your day been?" Hanji was hinting at something else that never happened.

"Normal." Lilith replies and drinks her water.

"Who won the match today?" Petra asks curiously about their training.

"Levi did. My back probably has his footprints all over it." She jokes and nudges Levi.

While the others talk a while, Lilith's eyes notice that Erd's hands are large, and it brings back memories of back in the winter, whenever she was shoved off of the cliff. He fit the description perfectly, and Lilith catches his attention by poking his outstretched arm.

"Can we talk?" Lilith asks, and the other's gaze turned to her, and she adds, "Privately."

"Sure." He replies and they both walk out to the porch.

Lilith places her hands on her hips and glares.

"Why did you do it?" She asks.

"Do what?"

"Oh don't play innocent. You're the one that pushed me off of the cliff back in the winter." Lilith takes a step forward, and grabs his shirt by the collar and yanks his face down to hers so she can make direct eye contact.

"Tell me why, and we will all go on with life like normal. I won't even tell anyone about this, not even Levi." Lilith's green gaze never wavered, and Erd beleived her.

"I wanted the highest score for once, ever since you took it from me during hand-to-hand combat training." He replies.

"That's all I wanted to know." She releases him and walks back inside of the cafeteria, and sits back next to Levi.

"What was that about?" He asks her quietly.

Lilith comes up with a quick lie. "I was telling him a secret, since I trust him because he is quiet."

Levi didn't push any further, but Hanji wanted to know and started begging to know what Lilith told Erd.

"Did she say that she loves L- Mmmph!" Lilith leans over the table and slams a hand over Hanji's mouth, making Petra laugh at the sight.

"Who's this L guy?" Levi teasingly asks Lilith once she sits back down.

Lilith roles her eyes. "Probably some guy with black hair and rarely smiles in another universe." ((Mwahahaha! ))

Levi pinches Lilith's cheek roughly. "Ow, ow, ow." She hisses.

He leans over and growls in her ear. "You'll tell your favorite person, right? I'll tell you something in return if you do." Lilith gave him no answer because Hanji was watching them with a grin.

Levi releases Lilith's cheek and she rubs it. She stands up to leave, and Levi follows after her like every night. He did not trust the other guys around here at all, even though he knew Lilith was more than capable of defending herself against someone. He had just seen too many things happen in the past...

Lilith twirls around and faces Levi before she goes into her cabin.

"Do you really want me to tell you?" Lilith questions him, raising a brow. Levi gives her a bored look as he lazily shrugs.

"On second thought, I should wait to tell you. Goodnight Levi." Lilith wraps her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly, then she ran off before he could react.

'Note to self, Levi, make sure you kick the shit out of her for hugging you.' Inner Levi says as he glares after Lilith.

* * *

The next day as they were training with the 3DMG, Levi and Lilith stayed quite a distance away from the others as usual. They were preparing to land, and Levi found this his chance at revenge. Even though he was close to Lilith, he still didn't want her touching him without permission.

As Lilith floats down to the ground, Levi lands right on top of her. Lilith was on the ground coughing as Levi stood on her back. He gets off and walks away, not even offering to help her back up.

"Asshole!" Lilith spats as she catches up with him.

Levi held back the urge to smirk at her. "Don't touch me again unless I say you can."

"Whatever." Lilith rolls her eyes and dusts herself off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

The graduating class stands proudly as they listen for their names to be called off for the tope ten. Keith re-reads the list, so that he could memorize it better. He knew that the smart-alec-Ackerman would be in the top ten, but he didn't think that this would happen. Though he did agree with the results because Lilith's levelheadedness and skill would be a great asset to wherever she chooses to go. The graduates straighten up and salute once he walks to the front of the crowd.

He pauses, making the eager people wait seconds longer before letting them know the results of three long years of training.

"The number one of the 97'th squad is... Lilith Ackerman!" Lilith was surprised, thinking that Levi would get the number one spot. She walks proudly to the front of the crowd, and with her usual bored expression, she stands saluting.

"Number two is Rivaille!" Levi was more respectful to his surperiors than Lilith was, and he let his facial expression lighten up as he stood in line next to the raven haired beauty.

"Number three is Hanji Zoe!" Hanji was a bit more excited than the two before her, and she smiled as she stood in line next to Levi.

"Number four is Erd Gin!" Lilith noticed how Erd's hair had changed from a light brown to a blonde over the summer because of the sun, but it didn't make him look much different. He was his usual quiet self as he stood next to Hanji.

"Number five is Petra Ral!" Petra was a bit more bashful than the others before her, and she shyly walks to stand next to Erd.

The other five people's names Lilith did not know of. She only payed attention to the people that payed attention to her. Anyways, after the graduation ceremony was a large feast where the others could eat, drink, and socialize as much as they wanted to. But Lilith wasn't hungry at all, and she found the noise too annoying, even though she was by herself in a corner. She leaves the large building and goes outside into the night. Her lonely footsteps were quiet against the dirt as she sauntered lazily to her cabin for the last time. She walks onto the porch and turns the door handle. She felt so tired that she didn't even notice that Levi was sitting on her bed waiting for her, so he decides to scare her.

"About time you got here, Ackerman." He says to her in his usual dual tone.

Lilith jumps slightly, but not as much as he expected her to. "Why are you here, Levi?" She asks after she yawns, and jumps up onto the top bunk where Levi was to sit beside him.

"Quit acting like you're tired. I know you better than that, and I can tell you that I know something is up." Levi says to her, making her cloudy green eyes clear up.

"You know me too well. You're going to have to die now." Lilith growls and pokes his chest.

"And you're going to get pinched now." He retorts and pinches her cheek roughly.

After he let's go, they both act like their normal, monotone selves. Lilith was the one who was more of an actress around others, and her few friends have actually gotten to see that she's a normal young woman like the rest of them whenever she wants to be. She sometimes finds it hard to act calm and composed around Levi, but she told herself she would mature with age.

Levi on the other hand, didn't have to act like he was hateful and monotone around others, because he was. Lilith was lucky to get to know the more... _nicer_ and caring side of him.

"Well, I'm leaving tonight." Lilith gestures to her gear that was laying on the bottom bunk, as well as the backpack with her things in it.

"I thought so." Levi says boredly and tilts his head to the side to look at Lilith. "And I am going with you." He says seriously.

"You don't have to." She tells him. "Unless you really want to."

"I've made up my mind; wherever you go is where I go, and wherever I go is where you go. And that is an order, Ackerman." Lilith snorts at him.

"You act like you're a squad commander already."

"I am your commander. Now get your gear and let's go." Levi says and Lilith salutes to him.

"Yes sir."

"You actually said "sir"."

"It's rare for me to, but I do what I want." Lilith hops down and buckles her gear onto her belts, giving the gas tanks a good shake to see if they still had gas in them. They did, and Lilith was happy about that.

"Oh and Levi, why do you want to come with me so badly?" Lilith asks after her gear was hooked up properly.

"I have to protect you."

"No you don-" Lilith was cut off by Levi clearing his throat.

"That is the order I gave myself to do. Also, we still have to exchange those secrets, remember?"

"Of course I do, but I want to wait until I feel like telling you." Lilith says shyly and Levi grabs her backpack for her and throws it on her back. Levi readies his own stuff and together they walk to where the horses are, boots clicking on the way there. Lilith grabs her tack and saddles up her horse, then looks back at Levi.

"Are we riding together?" She asks him and he shrugs. Lilith runs a hand down her horse's muscles, admiring how lean and fit she looked after three years of being a work horse at the training grounds.

"Do you know the way to Wall Sina?" Lilith then asks Levi.

Levi scratches his head. "I remember it vaguely, why do you ask?"

"Well, I think it would be easiest if we go there to join the Scouting Legion, since their headquarters is there."

"Alright, let's go then." Levi boosts himself up into the saddle and extends a hand to help Lilith on. She takes his cold hand and he practically picks her up, and then she sits on the edge of the saddle.

Levi could tell she hesitated to hold onto him.

"I give you permission to touch me." Even after three years of knowing him, she still hesitated whenever it came to situations like this. Lilith gladly wraps both arms around his waist, but not too tightly, and watched the scenery go by as they rode out of the training grounds.

* * *

Lilith must have fallen asleep because whenever she looks around she was no longer on the horse, but on soft grass. A small blanket had been put on her, and it smells like Levi, but the said young man was nowhere nearby, and neither was the horse. Her 3DMG was lieing on the ground nearby. Lilith sits up and folds the blanket to sit it aside. Her usually glazed lips were starting to crack from lack of moisture, and she reaches over to grab her bag, which had a metal canteen with water in it.

She rumages through her stuff and smiles whenever she finds what she was looking for. She twists the lid off and takes a few gulps of water, saving the rest for later. After she put it away and her eyes trailed over to her gear and all of the belts and buckles, a thought came across her mind.

'T-That pervert!' She blushes as she stares at nothing in particular. She mentally slaps herself for trying to imagine Levi touching her thighs, chest, legs, and other places where the belts are to get them off of her.

Lilith lifts her chin to look up at the sky. The sun was bright and it was hot out, which she didn't like at all. She unbuttons her shirt and puts it away in her bag, leaving her in a white tank. Lilith takes note that Levi even folded up her jacket and sat it beside of her boots. 'I'll have to thank him later, but first he needs to come back to me. I have no idea in hell where I am, but it seems like we're far away from any civilization.'

Lilith stands up and sees a dead tree nearby. She felt like exerting some energy, and the slightly soft wood wouldn't hurt her fists that badly. Lilith pulls on her boots and runs over to it, and starts punching the crap out of it, but her fun was over whenever she heard a "snap." Horse reins were being tugged roughly as the dead tree fell. The black horse rears on its back legs in fright, but Levi sooths it by scratching it between the ears. He rides over to where Lilith was stading with her mouth agape. She clears her throat whenever she sees him.

"Care to tell me why you knocked over a tree? Are you trying to kill me?" Levi growls at her, but his eyes held a different emotion.

"I wasn't trying to kill you! I honestly didn't think that I would knock it over." Lilith tells him. Her chest was rising up and down quickly, and her face was starting to get slick with sweat.

"Don't underestimate your own abilities." He replies and hops down. He reaches into the saddle bag and takes out some plums. Levi throws one at Lilith, who wasn't really paying attention, but with her cat-like reflexes she saw it coming and caught it.

"That's all I could find around here." Levi says to Lilith. She bit into the suculent fruit, and juice ran down her pursed lips. Lilith wipes it off with the back of her hand. Levi also ate his, not noticing that he was staring at Lilith the whole time. Lilith gives him a questioning glance but doesn't say anything.

Lilith sits down and puts her head on her knees. Levi sits down next to her, taking a cloth from his pocket and wiping the sweat from her brow. He tucks her bangs behind an ear.

"Hey Levi?" She turns to him and asks.

"Call me Rivaille now." Lilith sweat-drops at him because it was pronounced the same, only the L was replaced by an R. She doesn't probe him about it.

"Okay. Rivaille?"

"Hm?"

"Why are we in the middle of nowhere?" If they got lost, then Lilith would slit his throat.

"This is the quicker route to Wall Sina; by avoiding all of the towns."

Lilith nods in understandment. "Thank you for taking care of me... again." She thanks him quietly. He pinches her cheek and leans in close to her face, his hot breath on her neck.

"Don't worry about it. I enjoy doing it, actually." His raspy voice says in her ear, and he then stands up. "We should go now."

* * *

It was now dark outside, and Rivaille said he was getting tired. Lilith wasn't, so she offered to be the one controlling the horse. Levi sat behind her, and his head rested against her hair as he slept. He gave her a compass and told her to just keep going north. Rivaille's strong arms were around her waist, and she knew that if they came across any villiage that she was supposed to switch places with him, because it would put a dent in his pride if anyone saw him like that.

Lilith's train of thoughts were spinning in her mind, and she grinds her teeth together to keep focused. But, despite the effort, she remembered reading one of Petra's letters before she sent it out to her father. No one was in the cabin but her, and the peice of paper caught her eye. Lilith felt a pang in her heart whenever she read it, because her friends could see how she cared about Levi/Rivaille, but she was just to stuborn to admit it to herself.

'Feelings like this are usually unavoidable, but I have to learn to get over it. Rivaille and I will be seperated on missions in the Scouting Legion, so we wont see each other often unless it's at the HQ. That is why I never have confessed completely to him, but I'm sure he is aware of the situation.'

Lilith tugs slightly on the reins to stop her horse once they come out of the forest. The rest of the way was flat land, and about two or three miles in the distance was a large wall. She could see the faint glow of lanterns that the guards held as they patrolled the top of the wall.

The raven haired girl kicks her heel gently into the horses flank, and as the horse's strides got longer and faster, Rivaille started to stir. He didn't like the feeling of his head banging against Lilith's back, so he sits up and notices why they were moving so fast.

"Lilith, switch places with me." He says loud enough for her to hear.

"No way!" She laughs, her hair whipping him in the face.

"Your hair is hitting me!" He complains like a spoiled child.

Lilith ignores him but slows the horse down as it grew tired from sprinting the long distance. Her black hair falls back into place and Rivaille was safe for now.

"Lilith." He says angrily, so he grabbed her by the hair and throws her off of the horse. He scoots up in the saddle, and smirks to himself as she glared at him. She climbs onto the back.

As they ride past the Stationary guards, Lilith gives them a half-wave to be nice. They see that the pair is wearing their Cadet uniforms, and there are only several reasons why they would come all the way to the most inner wall.

"Halt!" One guard calls out to them before they make it all the way past them.

For Rivaille's sake, Lilith respects her seniors for once. She jumps down from the horse, and Rivaille does as well. They stand next to each other with their hands behind their backs as they waited for the guard to speak.

"State your business here." Lilith replies before Rivaille can.

"We are here to join the Scouting Legion."

"The Headquarters is in the center of this city. You won't miss it." The guard tells them, and Lilith bows slightly.

"Thank you." She says quietly. Rivaille on the other hand was quite surprised at how proper Lilith was being.

The guards wave them off, and Lilith walks with Rivaille towards the center of the city with her horse in tow.

"There it is." Rivaille mumbles. Lilith looks up at the large stone building. The sun started to rise behind it, making it appear as though it was glowing. "Now how do we approach them?" He wonders.

"I'll take care of it. First we need to get the horse to their stables." Lilith hurriedly walks to the stables behind the building. Several scouts were there, and they looked at her.

"I wonder why a Cadet is here? Ha." The oldest looking one laughed.

"My friend and I are going to join. Take the horse." Lilith says darkly at them. She grabs her stuff and they take her horse away for now.

"Now that _that_ is taken care of... Let's go, Le-Rivaille." Lilith says once she runs back over to where he was standing in front of the door.

Rivaille knocks on the door, and a tall man with blonde hair answers.

"Names and graduation ranks." He says strictly.

Lilith spoke first. "Lilith Ackerman. Number one of the 97'th squad." She stands still as she salutes lazily.

The man's gaze fell on Rivaille.

"Rivaille. Number two of the 97'th squad." He as well salutes.

"Come in. It's up to Commander Irvin if you two can join or not." The man was a bit friendlier now, but as he pointed them down the hallway, he bends down and sniffs at Lilith. She stiffens and looks at Rivaille with wide eyes and furrowed brows. His bored expression seemed to say, "What do you want me to do about it?"

Another person came along and told them that is what the man, named Mike, does to new people. This man led them to where Irvin Smith was sitting at a desk. His gaze was curious as he seen two faces unfamiliar to him.

"These two want to join the Scouting Legion, sir." The man that led them there said, and he stands with a salute. Lilith and Rivaille do too, as a sign of respect.

"We could always use new recruits." Irvin says in his deep voice. His face was calm and composed, and his dark eyes bore into the two new people. "Are they any good?" Irvin questions. The man standing between her and Rivaille sideways glanced at her, telling her to answer.

"I am the number one graduate of my class, sir." Lilith was nervous and said "sir" because she didn't want to blow their only chance at getting in easily.

The corners of Irvin's lips curved upwards as he half-smiled. "You must be the Ackerman I heard about. Your grades were impressive."

Lilith nods lightly and then Irvin's gaze fell upon Rivaille.

"I am the number two graduate of my class, Commander Irvin." Rivaille says respectfully.

Irvin tells him almost the same thing he told Lilith. He commands his men to find them empty rooms to stay in. Luckily, Rivaille and Lilith's rooms were right next to each other. The whole building stayed cold, and Lilith enjoyed it. They had stored away their old jackets, and replaced them with their new ones with the Scouting Legion emblem on it. They also got dark green cloaks. Irvin Smith was planning another expitdition outside of the walls in a couple of months. During that time, Lilith and Rivaille were trained since they were the rookies. One day as Lilith walks into the cafeteria after a long day of training, there were people that was sitting at_ her_ table that she hadn't expected to see again so soon.

Hanji, Petra, and Erd sat there. Hanji spots Lilith and waves happily. She groans mentally, but she endures it and sits down with them.

"I figured you came here. Where's Levi?" Hanji asks.

"It's Rivaille now." Came his annoyed voice from behind Lilith. He took a seat next to her.

"There he is!" Hanji smirks at Lilith, and leans across the table to whisper in her ear. "Have you two done anything interesting?"

Lilith spats curses and shoves Hanji back to her side of the table. Her eyes narrow and she glares at Hanji. The brunette puts her hands up in defense.

"No." Lilith hisses.

"No?" Petra asks.

"The answer to Hanji's question is no." Lilith tells the petite girl.

'The rest of my life will be stuck with them teasing me. The days like back at the training grounds starts again.'

* * *

Later that night after Lilith gets out of the bath, she heads back into her room to find Rivaille sitting on a chair next to her bed with his legs crossed.

"Why are you here?" Lilith asks him and sits on her bed.

"We don't get to train together that often, so I came to check up on you." He replies boredly.

"Thanks, I guess." She mutters.

"You seem more... down than usual."

"The annoying ones are back." Lilith sighs. "And I can't wait until our first expidition."

"Hn." Was his reply. Rivaille gets up and walks over to stand in front of Lilith. He reaches into his pocket, dropping the item in her palm. She looks down at what he gave to her.

"A locket?" Lilith was shocked. "Why did you give it to me?"

"The woman that raised me as a child told me to give this to someone that I care about." Rivaille half-smiles.

"R-Rivaille..." Lilith stutters and keeps her head down. 'Why do you care so much about me whenever I do nothing to return your acts of kindness?' She couldn't bring herself to ask him that. Not now.

Her eyes stayed half-lidded as she reached around the back of her pale neck and put the locket on. After taking a closer look at it, Lilith saw the vine-like design that wrapped around the silver heart shaped locket. She turns back to Rivaille.

"Can I open it?" She asks him. The little latch on it's side was just tempting her.

"Sure. I don't even know myself what is inside of it." Rivaille shrugs.

Lilith opens it up and on the inside was a pair of small emralds. They almost fell out, but Lilith caught them. Lilith's eyes were locked on them.

"They're the same color as your eyes." Rivaille says to her, catching her attention. He immediately bites down on his tongue to keep himself from saying anything else. She raises a slim brow at him, but doesn't ask him about it.


	6. Chapter 6

**DisillusionedNight- You should defenitely watch the anime; if you haven't already! And I also like the name Ackerman. It's an interesting name.**

**A/N- Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows! I know this fic isn't as good as my Death Note one; because I am more used to writing characters that are more _murderous; _so I'm not that good at describing the fights with titans.**

* * *

**Chapter 6:**

Lilith adjusts her gear that was hanging on her hips so that she could wear it more comfortably as she rode her horse through Shiganshina. There were crowds of people there, lined up on the sides of the streets as the Scouting Legion rode by. Commander Irvin Smith had assigned her to be in Mike Zakarius's squad. The only two others in the squad that she knew was Petra Ral and Erd Gin. Rivaille and Hanji was placed under someone else's supervision. Lilith wore the locket that Rivaille gave her, and as she gazes down at the horse's black mane, she places one hand on where it was at underneath of her cloak.

'Stay safe, Rivaille.' The sounds of the gate being opened echoes through her ears. She takes in a deep breath and exhales as she looks out into the feilds of grass that stretched out for miles. Her squad was in the front of the group, so if a titan attacked, it was up to them to warn the others.

Underneath of her, she felt Nightmare shift anxiously. Yes, she finally named her horse, and it suited her too. Her lean and muscular frame was covered with jet-black hair, and her normally dark brown eyes reflected red in the sunlight.

Anyways, the goal they were going for on today's expedition was to research on the titan's behaviour. But Lilith had her own goal though, as she sees her first titan arriving from the horizon. What squad you are on does not really matter if you see another in trouble, or if you get seperated from them. All that really matters is your own survival, because you can't be replaced. That's what Lilith thinks, anyways.

Nightmare snorts angrily at the sight of a ten meter class titan nearby. It came running towards them, and Mike shot a green flare out of his gun to let the others know that there was a titan. This breaks the formation of the group. Some split to the left, and some to the right, while Lilith's squad goes straight into the titan.

Once it was close enough to see clearly, Lilith thinks it's odd that it was so skinny. It's ribcage jutted out of it's skin, and it's head practicially looked like a skull. Mike told his squad to distract it while he killed it, much to Lilith's disappointment. She promises herself that she will fufill her goal later.

Lilith orders Nightmare to start sprinting past the titan, and the huge thing moved slowly as it turned around and chased after her. It couldn't run that fast, but as Nightmare's strides started getting smaller from exhaustion, it was only a matter of time before it caught up. It's huge shadow loomed over her, and then it falls down, landing right next to her.

Lilith is nearly thrown from her horse as it rears and bucks because it was spooked. The raven headed girl scratches it between the ears, and she soon calms down. The titan body shot out steam as it evaporated, which was a very weird process that Lilith would like to sit around and watch, but they had to move on to meet back up with the others.

Petra pulls her horse up next to Lilith's.

"Are you okay?" She asks. Lilith nods her head slightly, and taps Nightmare's flank to make her go faster so that she wasn't within talking distance of anyone. This wasn't time to be talking.

They caught up with the rest of the formation quickly. Now they were in the back instead of the front, and Lilith smirked to herself whenever a group of five titans of varried height came at them from the sides, boxing them in. The formation split once again, leading the two tallest titans away.

"Scatter!" Mike yelled to his subordinates. Including him, there was only five people in his squad, and three of them were rookies.

Lilith shoots out her grappling hook onto the back of the closest titan's head. It was only a three meter class, but it still looked slightly intimidating. Lilith presses down on the gas button, and she enjoys swinging through the air in a half circle around the titan. She grips her swords tightly and she remembers her training.

She spins sideways and cuts out the nape of the titans neck easily. Her goal was accomplished; killing a titan without any help, but she couldn't rest easy as the titan went toppeling to the ground. Mike had killed one of the others, and the third...

Petra was grabbed right off of her horse before she got a chance to launch herself at the titan. Her friend was being held up by the hood of her cloak as the ugly titan examined her. The other three members of her squad was too far away to reach her in time, so Lilith saw no choice but to save the orange haired girl.

Her grappling hook hooks itself right in the titan's eye, blinding it momentarily and it turns it's attention to her. Lilith used extra gas to move quicker like she did at the training grounds to stay ahead of everyone else. Petra was dropped to the ground as the titan was stunned, and Lilith swoops through the air at blinding speeds and kills the titan. She jumps off of it before it falls to go help Petra.

"Can you stand?" Lilith asks her whilst crouching. Mike and Erd had caught their horses for them, and they towed them over.

"Yeah. Thanks for saving me." Petra says shyly and Lilith just waves her off and hops back onto Nightmare.

It wasn't long before they were surrounded by several more titans before making it back to the formation, and Mike doesn't stop Lilith from taking them both down.

In her mind, all she can think of is spilling blood. The hot red liquid splattered all over her face and cloak, and she enjoyed the blood-lust she was having right now. It made her senses sharper, and she performed better now than the first kills.

As she glides through the air to try and get around to the titan's weak spot, it swats at her like some annoying bug and she slices it's hand clean off. Their body parts were surprisingly light compared to their enormous size. She does a backflip off of it's shoulder as it swats at her with it's remaining hand, and she shoots her grappling hook into the back of it's neck. Lilith moves quickly back up it, and attacks it from an angle so it wouldn't dull her blades as easily.

She lands back on the ground and looks around for more. She frowns whenever there was no more around, so she gets back on Nightmare and her squad joins back up with the rest of the formation, who had just now began retreating. Lilith wonders how much she had missed, and wishes that she was on another squad that had to fight more... _challenging_ titans.

* * *

Rivaille's half-lidded eyes find something of interest coming towards him as they retreated back towards the wall. It was Lilith. Her pretty face was covered in evaporating blood, and it was caked in her bangs. The front of her cloak was splattered with it also. She rides up beside of him with a smirk of pleasure plastered on her face.

"_Angel of Death_." Rivaille snides at her. She raises a brow at him.

"What makes you want to call me that?"

Rivaille points at her face.

"I might have went a little overboard back there." Lilith says with a shrug.

"More like a lot. You didn't get injured, did you?" Lilith shakes her head no, and Rivaille sighs with relief. He had killed one titan today, and he did it cleanly and whenever he was told to fight, but it was an abnormal one too, and it killed many men before he got to it. Lilith on the other hand, went on a killing spree, killing four in all. She found killing titans was fun, and Rivaille finds it more as a self defense.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lilith licking her blood stained lips.

"That's disgusting." He growls at her.

Lilith jumped because she had been caught. "It tastes good. I wonder what human blood tastes like?" Lilith looks at him with narrowed eyes and licks her lips again.

"You're acting so sadistic right now it's not even funny."

"Whatever. So do you know if we lost a lot of people?"

"Only about a sixth of them."

"That's not as many as I thought, which is good."

Rivaille nods in agreement.

* * *

Their squad leaders were to report to Irvin how the new recruits did. Mike was a bit skeptical about telling the commander about Lilith, but he had to tell the truth.

"Mike, your report please."

"Yes sir. Lilith Ackerman did not listen to my orders whenever I told them to scatter, and she killed four titans in total before we caught back up with the rest of the formation. But it was a good thing that she was fighting them, because Petra Ral would've been killed if she wasn't there to save her. Erd was calm and collected, and he and Petra both listened to my orders."

Irvin was quite surprised that Lilith had went on a killing spree without the help of the others, but at the same time he was glad that they had a person with such skill in the Scouting Legion.

"Find someone to go fetch Mrs. Ackerman. Tell her to come here immediatlely."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Lilith was in her room taking off her gear whenever Hanji barges in.

"Commander Irvin wants to see you!" She yells at Lilith.

Lilith turns around and then Hanji seen the dried blood on her face.

"What did you do to catch the commander's attention?" Hanji asks curiously.

"I have no idea." Lilith replies and walks past the brunette and out the door.

Lilith quickly navigates through the halls and makes it to Irvin's office. She knew that she looked awful with the blood stains all over her, but she didn't care as she walks in without knocking. She stands with a salute and she stares at Irvin, waiting for him to speak.

"What happened to make you go berserk today?" He finally asks.

"I wanted to protect my teammates; we wouldn't have escaped that many titans unscathed, sir."

Irvin nods in understandment.

"I think that with your talent, you will rise in the ranks in no time. You are dismissed." Irvin tells her. No more words were exchanged between them, and as she opened the door, Rivaille walks in. They bump into each other, but they both catch themselves before they tumbled to the floor. Irvin watched in amusement.

Lilith groans and rubs her head. "R-Rivaille!" She blinks in surprise at him.

"We'll talk later, Angel of Death." Rivaille tells her with a slight smirk and then she leaves.

No matter how much she wanted to snoop on them to see what they were talking about, Lilith controls herself and goes down the hallway for a shower after getting some fresh clothes. She looks at herself in the mirror, and she grimaces at herself. She did look like an Angel of Death with the blood all over her usually pale face. It was _not_ a good color on her, and she scrubs it off quickly.

Afterwards, she felt a lot better. Lilith flops down on her soft bed and places an arm over her eyes. Her lips part slightly as she sighs. Then a dark thought, like a nightmare all of the sudden, flashed before her eyes.

There stood an older Lilith on the rooftops in Shiganshina, panting heavily and she looked so tired, and the only thing keeping her standing was adrenaline. In her mind she kept repeating, "Don't give up. I have to keep fighting in Corporal's place while he's gone getting supplies," whenever a swarm of 10+ meter class titans surround her. She backs towards the center of the roof, trying to calculate a quick escape from her death.

The closest titan looked like it was permanantly smiling, and it threw a fist at the roof. Lilith does a cartwheel to get out of the way in time. She shoots her grappling hook to the roof of a house across from her, and she glides through the sky. One of the shorter titans jump up and snap at her, and she twists her sore body around quickly and dives down, slicing a large hunk out of it's neck.

She crashes to the roof after killing the titan, and her shirt gets caught on the shingles of the roof, ripping it from top to bottom. She was already covered in cuts and scrapes before this crash, and now she felt broken shingles and debri stick out of her exposed chest and stomach. She laid dangerously close to the edge of the roof. Lilith opened one glazed over green eye and she reaches towards her swords.

'Corporal entrusted me with keeping the titans away while he grabs some gas tanks from our fallen teammates. Speaking of which, I think I'm out.' A doe-eyed titan looks at her, reaching towards her weak body. Lilith grips the handles of her swords so tightly that she could see the old scars on her knuckles from whenever she first met Rivaille. She smiles softly at the titan reaching for her. 'I'm sorry Rivaille. I'm sorry that you trust someone that couldn't even live up to what you ordered them to do. What kind of high ranking officer am I?' Her eyes start to water up, and she allows herself to cry, just this once before her life ends.

'I never got the chance to tell you how much I love you. I suppose Petra will be a better person for you. Yeah, she's really pretty, nice, smart; and she doesn't do your orders recklessly. She doesn't become sadistic like I do whenever she fights. The locket you gave me is with her. I told her to watch after it since she wasn't sent here, and I was afraid I would break it if I wore it.' She burries her face in the sleeve of her ruined Scouting Legion uniform. Her body shakes as she weeps. She was not afraid to die, she was afraid of what she would leave behind. Her hands grew weak and she lets go of her swords. They fall to the ground below, causing a loud clattering sound.

Lilith manages to lift her head a little to see if the titan was still there. It's hand was inches away from her, and it formed a shadow over her. 'This is a nice change, I get to be in the cool shadows before I leave, instead of in the sunlight. There are so many things that I wanted to find answers for, but you can't have everything your way. This world is filled with wonderful things, but it is yet so cruel. If I'm the Angel of Death, shouldn't I be the one delivering death to these titans instead of them delivering it to me? I suppose it's what I get for slaughtering so many of them.'

Through her blurry eyes, she couldn't tell what this green shape was as it flew through the sky towards her. She felt the large titan hand hoovering above her back, but the green shape flew right into it and knocked it off of her. She heard a sickening crunch, and she blinks several times to see what happened. She then seen what the green shape was; it was Rivaille wearing his cloak. She caught the last second of him kicking the titan's hand away from her before her nightmare goes black.

* * *

Rivaille walks towards Lilith's room after he talked with Irvin. Before he opens her door, his ears pick up on the faint sound of whimpering. He barges in without knocking, slaming the door shut behind him. Lilith was thrashing around crazily on her bed, and he notices the tears streaming down her pocelain face.

He leaps onto her and pins her body under his, and holds her arms above her head before she hit him without meaning to.

"Lilith!" He yells at her to try to wake her up. Her eyes snap open and she stares at Rivaille with wide eyes.

She opens her mouth to speak, but then another wave of tears choked her. She was so embarrassed to cry in front of him, or anyone else for the matter.

Rivaille releases her arms and wipes off her face with his gentle hands. He brushes her bangs out of her left eye.

"Shh." He says softly. He had no experience with comforting a woman before, so he let instinct take over his actions. "Can you tell me what happened?" He asks.

"I laid down on my bed and suddenly had a nightmare where I almost died by the hands of titans." She answers, quickly recovering from crying. "The thing is, they were inside of the walls instead, like they had broken in somehow." Lilith leaves out the part of how he saves her.

Rivaille leans closer to her face, to the point where Lilith could feel his warm breath on her cheeks. She had nowhere to run because she was boxed in, so she stares at his face, wondering what he will do.

"I wouldn't let you get killed. Even if I was miles away, I would sense it and come rescue you."

'Oh Rivaille, that's exactly what you did in my dream.'

"Are you afraid of death?" Rivaille asks, even though he felt it was more of a personal matter.

"I am not afraid to die. The reason I was crying was because I was afraid of what I would leave behind to suffer in this cruel world without me." Lilith says seriously.

"And what is that?"

"Not you." She smirks at him.

Rivaille clears his throat. "In this situation, I would advise you to watch what you say or else." He hisses into her ear.

"Do I sense a challenge?" Lilith brightens up. "What would you do to me if I didn't listen to what you say?"

Rivaille honestly hadn't thought of that yet. They stare into each other's orbs, waiting for something to happen between them. Lilith's lips form into a straight line.

"Why did you have to talk to Irvin?" She asks him.

"He knows about my past as a criminal. He wanted to know a lot of stuff. Why did you have to go talk to him?"

"Because he wanted to know why I went berserk out there today."

"Can you tell me about your past?" She then asks him.

Rivaille sighs. "I used to be involved with underground crimes, but that was before I met you. I quit, and I hid for a while. Oh, and by the way, I was honestly joking about trying to sell you whenever we first met."

"Well it frightened me." She pauses and thinks for a while. "Did Irvin tell you that you were talented?"

Rivaille nods. "He told you the same thing. I heard your conversation with him before I walked in. You were actually treating him like your senior." He gets off of her and walks to the door, pausing on his way out. "Think of happy thoughts before you sleep. I don't want to see you like that again." And then he was gone.

Why she didn't tell him how she felt about him while the moment was perfect was beyond her. She was thankful that he woke her up from that nightmare before it continued. Then she remembers something she kept calling Rivaille in that nightmare.

"He was a Corporal?! And I was a high ranking officer? I wonder if this will happen someday.."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

On Lilith's sixteenth birthday, she sat boredly at the table in the dining hall after she woke up. They had went on another expedition a few days ago, and about thirty percent of the men were lost. Her elbow was propped up on the table and her chin rested on her hand. She had a gut feeling that something bad was going to happen today, but she tried to push the feeling away. She has nothing to do for the rest of the week, so she decides to go visit her family that she hadn't seen in over four years.

Lilith gathered a few things that she would need, and she slips a knife into her pocket for protection since her gear was being cleaned and worked on at the moment, like everyone else's; but she still wore her Scouting Legion uniform even though she didn't have to. Before she leaves her room, she makes sure that her locket was still around her neck, and she smiles before she left to go get her horse.

As she walks into the large stables, a newer soldier turns red at the sight of her and salutes. It did not surprise her at all, since this was now normal. During the short year she had been here, she was no longer a rookie. Irvin told her though she was young, she could be an instructor if she wanted to. Rivaille, Lilith, and Irvin often sat around and chatted in his office whenever they had free time; and she learned how much their commander cares about his troops.

"What do you need, M-Miss Ackerman?" The boy stutters.

She rests her stern green gaze on him. "Go get Nightmare and another horse ready for me."

"Yes Miss Ackerman!" He runs off.

Lilith smirks to herself. She loved the sight of people growing uncomfortable whenever she was around. Her aura was dark, and it scared people that didn't know her well.

While she was waiting for her horses, she sits down on a bench nearby. The sound of boots clicking made her lift her gaze.

Rivaille plops down on the bench next to her, crosses his legs, and stretches an arm behind her.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asks, his gaze darkening.

"To visit someone."

"And you were going to leave me here all alone with annoying bitches without telling me? What a good friend you are." Rivaille hisses at her.

"I didn't tell you because I'm making you go with me." She hisses right back at him with a glare. Lilith folds her arms over her chest and huffs. Rivaille didn't believe her until he seen that two horses were being brought to her.

"Here they are, Miss Ackerman!" The scout says nervously.

"Thanks. Now scat." She growls and he walks briskly away from her.

Lilith stands up and steps up into the saddle, slinging the other leg on the other side and she sits down. She holds the reins in one hand, and hands the other horse's to Rivaille, who just stared at her hand with a blunt expression.

"Let's go, Rivaille." She says and he swipes them away from her, climbing into the saddle of his horse in an instant.

They ride side-by-side south.

"Who are we going to visit?" Rivaille asks Lilith.

"My family. I need to see them today." Lilith says, her eye's half-lidded as she looks down at her horse's mane.

"Why today?" He was curious.

"It's my birthday..." Rivaille blinks in shock.

"It's also mine." He says to her, and she looks at him with surprise.

"Eh, this is odd." She mutters. Rivaille nods in agreement.

It started to rain whenever they arrived all the way back in Shiganshina at sunset. Lilith leads Rivaille through the forest to where her home was. He had never seen her... worried before, and they raced through the trees before coming out in the open. Lilith halts her horse and jumps off of it quickly, and she saunters over to the cabin's front door. The sudden downpoor had stopped.

Rivaille climbs down from his horse slowly whenever he heard Lilith scream. He knows something must have happened because she only did this once before, and that was whenever she was almost out-cold from Erd's chokehold on her. Rivaille runs over to the source of the sound, ready to fight. But what he seen was shocking.

Two adults laid on the floor in pools of blood, and the female bore a slight resemblance to Lilith. He assumed they were her parents. As his eyes shot around the home to find Lilith, he heard a crashing sound coming from a room. He moves quickly to find Lilith standing over a man with a knife stuck in his throat. A cloth was in his hand, and it had an odd smell coming from it.

"Lilith!" Rivaille says loudly at her to catch her attention.

Lilith yanks the knife from the man's throat and spins around to face Rivaille. She looked shaken and frightened as she places the knife back into her pocket.

"He... That bastard tried to drug me! It's just like that fucking dream I had years ago..." She trails off and burries her face in her hands. 'Don't cry Lilith. Not in front of him again. Controll your emotions.' Inner Lilith said, and the young woman calmed down.

A comforting hand was placed on her back, and one on her waist as Rivaille pulls her closer to him. She places her hands against his chest and she started shaking with fright. Rivaille rubs her back soothingly, feeling her tense muscles relax by his touch. Lilith enjoyed the short-lived moment before she spoke to him.

"I wanted to apologize to them for snapping at them a while before I left them." Lilith says and then she breaks out of Rivaille's hold.

"Mikasa!" She suddenly screams and looks everywhere for this _Mikasa_.

"She's gone." Lilith says to him and brushes past, walking back to Nightmare and jumping on. Before Rivaille could catch up with her, she rides right past him at full speed.

"I'll never understand what she's thinking. Damn, I need to calm her down; she just killed a man. The first time is always shocking." Rivaille spats a line of curses and hops onto his horse, chasing after Lilith.

Lilith rides through the streets at top speed, causing people to jump out of the way. Several cussed at her until they saw the emblem on her jacket, then they stared at her in wonder, thinking of ways that she could be so upset.

Rivaille did the same, and the civilians think that he had done something to her to make the pretty girl mad. 'Quit looking at me like that, cocksuckers.' His mind growled and he kicked his heel harder into the horse's flank. It's strides were finally starting to widen, and he watches as Lilith disappears past the gate, into the night.

"Fucking horse!" He yells aloud and commands it to run faster. 'Now it'll even be harder to see where Lilith is since she and her horse blends in with the night.' He says in his mind as clouds move over the moon, and with little light to see with, he kept going north, hoping that she was going back to the HQ before she did something she would regret.

* * *

Lilith rubbed her eyes with the back of her sleeve, not letting the waterfall of tears she was holding back fall. 'That man was just waiting for me to walk into my room. I could see the footprints of other men being there, so I suppose they took Mikasa. They must have been informed that there was another daughter, so that bastard stood there waiting for me to come home. I knew something bad was going to happen today.'

She knew how much of an idiot she looked like riding recklessly past those people. Lilith told herself people die all of the time, and it would eventually happen to her parents anyways. She was glad that Nightmare could run for far distances, because she didn't feel like being around Rivaille or anyone else at the moment. 'I just want to be alone until my mind calms down.'

The rest of the what should have been a long ride back to the headquarters was a blur. Lilith was almost there, so she had Nightmare slow down. Big mistake, because here came Rivaille, and he grabs the reins out of her hands. The two horses were tired from the traveling fast for the long distance, and their muscles spasmed as they walked.

"Lilith, are you crazy? You lost your cool, and I am sorry for your loss, but there is nothing you can do about it now." He says quickly to her.

Lilith looked at him with a fake smile on her lips. "I have realized that, but I needed a while to calm down... Even someone like me feels pain in their heart, Rivaille."

Rivaille's face turns grim. "I don't like seeing you upset."

"I'm sorry for storming off like that." She looks down to avoid his gaze. "I'm fine now." Lilith shakes her head trying to forget seeing her parents dead.

Her hand trails to her locket and she squeezes it. Rivaille sees this out of the corner of his eye as he leads her horse to the stables, and he smiles.

"You should tell Irvin about what happened in the morning. For now, I'm going to make you sleep." Rivaille tells Lilith as they walk through the halls. He opens her room's door for her, and his gaze never leaves her as she throws her backpack on the floor and falls down onto her bed.

He walks over and sits on the chair next to her bed. Lilith had fallen asleep as soon as she hit the bed, and Rivaille sighs and takes her jacket off for her, and he pulls the blankets over her. He ran his fingers through her black tresses before he leaves with a small smile on his face.

* * *

After Lilith gets washed up for the day, she takes Rivaille's advise and goes to Irvin's office. She knocks on the door softly.

"Come in." Came Irvin's deep voice and she walks in.

Lilith walks over to a cushioned chair in front of his desk and sits down. "Rivaille told me I should tell you what happened yesterday." She tells him with a bored expression.

"What happened?" Irvin asks, worried. He always didn't mind listening to his scout's thoughts, because he cared for each and every one of them.

"Yesterday Rivaille and I went back to Shiganshina so that I could visit my family, but whenever I got there I found them dead. I walk through the house to search for my younger sister Mikasa, whenever a disgusting man grabbed me from behind and held a cloth against my face. I knew there was drugs on it, because I could smell it. Luckily I had a knife in my pocket and I stabbed him in the throat, killing him before Rivaille came to check on me. I... I kind of stormed off to get away from him, and I felt really bad for doing so whenever he was only trying to comfort me."

Irvin leans back in his chair as he thought of how to tell Lilith this. "I am sorry for you loss, but your sister was taken in by Doctor Jeager. I heard rumors of this while I was doing my daily walk."

"She's alive?" Lilith asks happily and he nods. She stopped herself from smiling and remained her bitter-calm self. "About being an instructor... I would like to see if I like it."

"I'll tell the new scouts."

"What time should I be in the meeting hall?"

"You could go now and prepare yourself, if you like. They should arrive there shortly." Irvin approves of her decision, and she leaves immediately to go get ready.

Lilith walks towards the meeting hall whenever Hanji spots her.

"Lilith Ackerman!" The bispectacle girl calls out to her.

Lilith turns towards the voice and glares.

"Good luck to you!" Hanji jumps excitedly.

"News spreads fast around here." Lilith mutters and Hanji nods, then she hands Lilith something white.

"Here, this will make you look even more sexy." Hanji winks and runs off. Lilith hisses like a cat at her and looks down to the item in her hand. It was a small chiffon scarf. Lilith didn't agree with what Hanji told her, but she does think that it would make her look more professional. She quickly ties it around her neck, hiding her locket.

'I wonder where that crazy woman got this? At least I wont have to worry about my locket being noticed anymore.' Lilith always tucked it inside of her shirt so that nosey people like Hanji wouldn't question her about it.

She quickly walks onto the stage, and about twenty people enter the room shortly after. Lilith catches some of the male's conversations, and it makes her uncomfortable and mad at the same time.

"Ackerman is so pretty!"

"Just look at those hips, I wonder what lucky guy get's to hold onto those, if ya' know what I mean." Another guy elbows his friend and they laugh.

"Yeah, and she looks so... exotic with that pale skin that looks so smooth, long black hair, and those bright green eyes. Her lips are perfect and so are those big b-" Lilith couldn't take it anymore, and anger flowed through her.

"Listen here, you shitheads!" She yells at the top of her lungs at them. "I am here to train your lazy asses, so that you wont die fighting titans. So shut the hell up and listen to me!" Lilith had lost her cool, but then she smirks at the sight of every single recruit in the crowd saluting to her.

"I was the top graduate of my class, and I've already came this far after being here for just a year. After one year I'm already instructing you brats. You perverted people should show respect to women." She glares at some of the ones that she noticed talking about her earlier before sweeping her gaze across the crowd.

"For your first assignment, I will need a volunteer to come up here." Lilith turns back to normal as she says that.

A male that was over six feet tall walks up onto the stage, towering over her five' four height. She stares up at him, noticing he was one of the perverts from earlier.

"I will first show you how you really do self defense if you have to fight another human." Lilith says and ducks down, grabs the male around the back of his knees, and uses her shoulder to shove him to the stone floor. It happened in an instant, and the recruits stared in shock at the power Lilith held. But she didn't stop there. She would show them that they were to respect their instructor.

Lilith grabs him by his hair to hold him up as she kicks his face, which busted his lip. She kicks him in the side, then slams the heel of her boot down on his stomach, making him spit out blood. Lilith kicks him off of the stage. She glares at the recruits staring at her with fear.

"Does anyone else want to say something about me like that bastard did?" Lilith smirks as they stayed quiet.

"I find that violence is always the answer. People don't seem to learn unless you beat it into their heads. You are dismissed. Next time I'll train you with the 3DMG." She was happy that she could take out her extra energy on someone. Irvin probably wouldn't mind, since it was to teach the boy a lesson. Lilith tailed them as they started leaving, and the girls that were closest to her started to panic and try to move away.

"Hey, I'm not like that unless someone pisses me off." Lilith says to them, and they nod. "That boy and his buddies were saying things I don't want to hear about me." The girls look at each other, and back at Lilith.

"He's always been like that..." The blonde says.

"Figures." Lilith growls under her breath and the recruits part to make way for her to walk away from them.

Lilith decides to go tell Commander Irvin how it went before she goes to lunch. Rivaille was talking to him whenever she walks in.

"I didn't mean to interupt." Lilith says, embarrassed.

"Come on in. I was about to send Rivaille to fetch you anyways." Irvin tells her, so she re-enters the room and sits down next to Rivaille.

"So?" Irvin questions her with a straight face.

"It was horrible." Lilith spats out.

"At least she was being honest." Rivaille comments, feeling the waves of annoyance flying off Lilith like sparks.

"How so?" Irvin asks, ignoring Rivaille's comment.

"Most of the male recruits were being perverted, so I beat the shit out of the one that was dumb enough to volunteer whenever I taught them self defense." Lilith crosses her legs and huffs.

Irvin was quiet for a while, and Lilith thought that he was mad at her until he finally speaks, breaking the awkward silence.

"I can understand your anger, but just don't go overboard like that again."

"Yes, sir. I only did it to teach them to respect me."

"What are you going to teach them tomorrow?" Rivaille asks, his blueish orbs locking with Lilith's green.

"How to use their 3 Dimensional Maneauver Gear. I really don't think I am cut out for this, but I'll whip them into shape by the time of our next expidition." She answers, looking back and forth between the two males sitting with her.

"And that will be around this time next year." Irvin says to her.

"That's long enough. Too long for my liking." Lilith states flatly.

"If you'd like, I could find someone to help you since you are new at this." Irvin suggested, and Lilith raises a brow at him.

Before either of them speaks, Rivaille butts in. "I'll do it." Irvin nods.

"I'm glad that you will, because you're one of the few people that I can put up with."

At dinner later that day, Rivaille asks where Lilith got the scarf.

"Hanji gave it to me." Lilith replies, her gaze landing on Hanji, who grins.

"It does make you look sexy! Oh, Rivaille, you should have one too if you're going to be an instructor. It makes you look more professional." Hanji hands him one. He gives the two women a questioning glance.

"Hanji said that it would make me look-" Lilith was cut off.

"Tell her it looks good on her!" Hanji exclaims. If looks could kill, then Hanji would've been dead by now from the glare he recieved from Rivaille. The brunette sat back down, rolling her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8:**

Throughout the next year, Lilith and Rivaille trained the recruits. The females swooned over Rivaille the whole time, making it difficult for them to learn anything. The males however had realized that Lilith meant business whenever she was instructing them, and they obeyed her every command. Some of them quit because they couldn't handle it, but the ones that didn't managed to catch onto their instructor's skill. Only a real life battle could tell if they truly did, though, and today was the day they would see if they did.

Lilith rode Nightmare next to Rivaille. Irvin had told them that they did not have to be in a squad since they were not rookies anymore, but he advised them to help the others that needed their help. Rivaille and Lilith both decided to wear their scarves with their uniforms, because as Rivaille says, it makes them look "_bad ass and a higher rank above the rest_."

If they people they trained did well today, then they both would become officers that could hand-pick their own squads. Lilith dreaded this since she is not good at working with others in a team, but at the same time she was excited that she could pick anyone. She already had people in mind; Hanji, Erd, and Petra. But, she knew Rivaille had the same people in mind.

Lilith kept her gaze straight ahead of her, avoiding the people that looked at her as she rode past them. Finally, the gate rose, and Lilith couldn't wait to feel the thrill of killing titans once more. She was in the back of the formation, so she wouldn't get to attack for a while until it split.

"Good luck, Angel of Death." Rivaille says to her before they rode off quickly. They both were curious to see the other in action.

The Scouting Legion entered a forest without any problems. They had went around the forest last time, but Irvin found it better if they could fight with trees surrounding them. Approaching them was a titan that was a 15 meter class, and it was a deviant too.

"One target is up ahead! Prepare for battle! Split into groups." Irvin commands them.

Lilith stayed seated in her saddle, controling her urge to attack it. 'Not now, not until the others need my help.'

The soldiers closest to it jumped into the air. The deviant titan grabbed the line of a grappling hook as a man tried to move to a different tree. He was killed instantly in the titan's hands, and it opened it's mouth and swallowed him. The only thing that was left was the man's arm, and it fell to the ground. The damn deviant had killed ten people before Lilith decides to take it out. Rivaille had the same idea, and they both shot through the air, flipping and spinning occasionally to avoid hitting the trees.

The titan's gaze settled on them. Lilith rememberd that she could momentarily blind a titan before it regenerated it's eyes, and that's what she aimed to do. Her grappling hook hit one of it's eyes, and she smirked before pressing the gas button harder so that she pulled ahead of Rivaille.

It rose a hand to grab her line, and she did a side-spin, which was her favorite thing to do, slicing it's fingers off before landing on it's face. She stabbed a blade into it's only eye left, and she jumps back into the trees before it's other hand crushed her as it slapped itself in the face. Lilith reaches down and grabs another blade since she left that one right in the titan's eye.

Rivaille was glad that Lilith had blinded it, and he swoops down and attacks it from an angle, slicing the nape of it's neck before he landed on the tree right beside of Lilith. The titan fell to the ground, steam rising off of it.

Lilith jumps back down and lands right on her horse's back. The further they ventured into the forest, the more soldiers that got killed or injured. Lilith allows herself to go on another killing spree to save more lives.

The raven haired girl takes down five titans by herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her friends fight too. They did wonderfully, and that is whenever she realizes that they had improved greatly. Some of the recruits she trained fought exceptionally well also, but the only person that matched her speed and talent was Rivaille. He was at her side the whole time while they both killed titans that got in the way.

"Retreat!" Irvin yells suddenly right whenever Lilith dives off of a tree and kills a tall titan. She curses under her breath and finds Nightmare quickly, riding away with the rest of the remaining Scouting Legion soldiers that went on this expedition. As they neared the gates that were opening for them, a couple of 15 meter class titans appear, heading right towards them. Irvin spots them quickly.

"Lilith Ackerman, go take care of those two while we reach the wall!" He calls out to her since she was the closest to them that wasn't injured.

"Understood!" She yells back to him and splits away from the others. Nightmare ran quickly, and then she launches right off of her horse.

The titans stood right next to each other, so Lilith shoots her grappling hook into the one farther away from her, so she could kill them both in one swoop. She does her side-spinning move on them both, digging her blades deep within the back of their necks. Blood gets all over her.

Lilith lands on the ground smoothly, and calls for Nightmare. Her black horse comes running to her, and she hops onto it with ease. She commands Nightmare to run at top speed, and the horse sprints back to the group right as they walk through the gate. The gate was closed behind her, and only then did she see the devistation the titan's had bestowed upon them.

Most of the few remaining soldiers were in the caravans covered in bandages. Some were without horses and limping. She even spots a man that lost his eye in the battles. 'So that is why Irvin chose me to take care of those titans instead of dragging the injured into another fight. I think I'm the only one not injured besides Rivaille and the Commander.'

She keeps her head down in respect. Out of nearly 100 that went on the expedition, only 20 came back. Women crying could be heard from all around, and two kids staring at her caught her attention. Her green gaze locks on them. 'They're probably just shocked because the fact that I am not injured.' Lilith says in her mind and looks away from them, but then she does a double-take and looks back at them.

The girl standing next to the boy looked so much like her whenever she was a child that it was scary. That's whenever it hit her. 'It's Mikasa! That's why she was staring at me!' No matter how much Lilith wanted a reunion with her little sister, she had to make it back to HQ with the others. She spots Rivaille nearby, and Nightmare trots over to walk beside of his horse.

People whispered whenever they rode past, and Lilith couldn't help but listen.

"Those two are probably some of the strongest, they don't even have a scratch on them."

Rivaille must have heard the comment about them, because Lilith saw him smirk.

"Didn't you see how easily she took down those two close to the gate? Of course they're strong!" This time it was her turn to smirk. She looks down at the old man that said that, stopping Nightmare.

"_Angel of Death_, remember it." Lilith says darkly, and rides back up to Rivaille.

"What was that about?" He asks.

"I just told him who I was."

* * *

Back at the headquarters later that day, the tired soldiers limped around. Most stayed in their beds if they lived there. Lilith had washed the blood from herself, and went to go eat dinner. As she ate alone, Commander Irvin Smith walks up to her. The few others that sat there eating turned their heads to look.

"Do you mind if I sit down here?" He asks her politely.

"No one's sitting there, so, uhm, yeah. You don't have to ask, sir." Lilith says matter-of-factly. Irvin sits down across from her at the table.

"There's good and bad news, Lilith." Lilith pauses on eating her rice, sitting her fork back down on the tray.

"Good news first." She tells him, becoming serious.

"You did really well today. Excellent actually. You exceeded my expectations of you, and so did Rivaille. On the last two expeditions, I never got a chance to see you fight but now that I have, I know that the Scouting Legion has hope," He pauses and Lilith picks up her fork, eating a bit of rice. "Consider yourself Colonel of the Scouting Legion."

With those words, once they registered in Lilith's mind, she drops her fork on the floor. A loud echo rang through the cafeteria.

"Why me? Aren't I a bit too... _young_ for that position?" She asks, shocked. She bends down quickly and places the dirty fork back on her tray.

"It does not matter what age, all that matters is your experience. I decided upon this after seeing how you saved many soldiers lives today. You trained those recruits well."

"But Rivaille-" The blonde man cuts her off.

"_Rivaille_ is now the Lance Corporal. The Scouting Legion needs people like the two of you to help command it. Both of you together work really well; you're like the best tag-team."

Lilith blinks and stares blankly at him. "Now tell me the bad news, sir." She finally says.

"A Titan taller than the walls broke the gate of Shiganshina today, and an armored Titan broke through to Wall Maria. This is another reason why I appointed Rivaille and you to a high position. At times it will be up to you to command the troops." Irvin says with a grave face.

"Are people being evacuated to Wall Rose?" Irvin nods. All of these things were shocking to Lilith.

"By river. There isn't enough room on the boats for everyone though. Many have already been devoured by the titans. That is all I know for now until I recieve another report. You now have your own office to do paperwork in, which there will be a lot coming, especially since Wall Maria has fallen."

"But Irvin, I should go fight!" She says to the older man.

He shakes his head at her. "Even the strong fall, Lilith. I will not have the newly appointed Colonel go into battle without us thinking up a strategy first."

"You're right." Lilith looks down at her now cold food, and she lost her appetite. "Where is my office?"

"Right across the hall from mine. Rivaille shares it too, so you two can split any of the work I give you. Now, if I can excuse myself, I need to go tell the higher ups about your new position." Irvin gets up and leaves.

Lilith walks faster than normal to her office. She opens the door, and Rivaille fixes his bangs as he props his legs onto the desk.

"Good evening, _Colonel_." Rivaille smirks at her and she takes a seat beside of him.

"Don't call me that,_ Corporal._" She spats out "Corporal". Lilith sighs loudly. "I still cannot believe this is really happening."

"Me either. Imagine what it would've been like if we had traveled back here any slower. We would have been caught in that mess." Rivaille says to her, leaning back in his chair.

Lilith runs a hand through her hair and lies her head on the desk in front of her. "I don't think I could get used to being second in command."

"Just relax; everyone will now fear you more than before." Rivaille says now sitting down normally and patting the back of her head.

Lilith sits back up. "Right. I actually enjoy making others fear me."

"I've noticed."

* * *

Several months later in the winter, Lilith sat in her office reading a report that a messanger had brought her. Apparently the refugees from Wall Maria were to try and retake the land. With one third of their land lost, people were starving because there wasn't enough land to raise livestock and grow crops to feed everyone.

"There's no way that they could do it with no training at all. Screw what Irvin says, I need to go help them. At least I could save some innocent lives, even if the mission fails." Lilith says to herself quietly. Rivaille enters, and he stares at her with annoyance.

"There's no way that you could make it all the way there before all of those people fighting are killed. They've probably already retreated, Lilith." He says and takes a seat beside of her.

Lilith facepalms. "I'm an idiot. I didn't even think about that."

"You're always worried about others and not yourself. Don't worry so much about it, we'll get our chance to fight soon." Rivaille says. His greyish eyes examine her long black tresses that seemed to get in the way every time she moved. "Do you ever burn up with all of that hair?"

Lilith glances at him, then she runs a pale hand through her hair. "Most of the time I do; but I do not find it a problem as long as it's a few inches above my gear. If it was any longer, then whenever I fight, it would get caught in the gear as it is spinning."

"Then why don't you pull it back like most other women do?" Rivaille asks, though he didn't know anyone else in the Scouting Legion with hair as long as her's.

"It would probably whip me in the face whenever I do flips." Lilith snorted. "Hmm, you should braid my hair, then. How about it, Lance Corporal?" The Oriental smirked.

"You expect me to know how to braid hair?" Rivaille asked bluntly.

"It's too complicated doing it on my own." Lilith's eyes glaze with sadness, and she pouted at him.

Rivaille _hated_ that look. Though he knew she was faking, he couldn't help but to tell her that he would do her this favor. But, he said that she owed him, and that next time she wanted her hair braided that she would have to find someone else to do it. Lilith smiled as he braided her hair; and right after he was finished a knock came at the door.

"Come in." Rivaille says and Irvin walks into the office.

"I have gathered all able-bodied soldiers in the main hall. Colonel Ackerman, go pick your team, because next year you will go to Wall Maria to examine the situation."

"Yes sir!" Lilith stands up and walks past Irvin, but before she left Rivaille spoke.

"Am I not allowed on her squad?"

"I never said you couldn't be." Irvin tells him. "It's up to Lilith."

"Come on Rivaille. I'll need your assistance." Lilith says and tightens her scarf before the three of them left the office together to go to the main hall.

The Commander, Colonel, and Corporal stands in front of the crowd of tired looking people. There was no doubt that the titan's breaching the walls were putting stress on them. No more normal daily lives for them.

"Colonel Ackerman is here today to hand-pick her squad that will tour Wall Maria in the spring." Irvin's booming voice rang through the room.

Lilith let's her cold gaze sweep over the crowd of people. She remembers some of the top-ranking soldiers from the list she was givin, and she chooses them.

"Hanji Zoe. Erd Gin. Petra Ral. Auruo Bossard. If you are here, come to my office immediately. That is all." Lilith says to them, and she takes her leave.

She wasn't waiting in her office for long whenever the four people she requested for came in. She knew three of them personally, since they were some of her few friends, but Auruo Bossard she did not know at all. This Bossard guy pissed her off as soon as she sees him. He had a smug expression on his face, but she put up with it because out of the squad she had chosen, he had the most solo kills. If push came to shove, Lilith would teach the man a lesson, despite him being older than her.

"Take a seat. Rivaille should be here any moment now, and we are going to assess the situation at Wall Maria in the spring. Any questions?"

Hanji, of course, was the one that asked her something before the others did.

"How are things between you and Rivaille?" Lilith keeps calm, though she glared at Hanji. Lilith did notice how Petra looks down at her lap with a sad look in her golden eyes, and Lilith remembers that she also cared for Rivaille.

"Listen here Hanji, nothing is happening between us, and I don't know why you won't just let it go." Lilith says, and Petra looks back up. The pretty woman's expression seemed to brighten a bit as Lilith said those words.

"But you two are always-" Hanji was cut off as Rivaille walks in and punches her in the face so that she would shut up.

The hyper persona she usually had went away as she rubs her cheek soothingly. It was swelling quickly, and Rivaille walks behind the desk to take his seat next to Lilith.

"Don't talk about Lilith and I like that. We are friends is all." Rivaille lies through his teeth. He hates the fact that he and Lilith never had the chance to tell each other how they feel. Rivaille knows that they are more than friends, but not lovers. There is no time for them to be so either, but if the situation was different, then he wouldn't mind at all to leave the Scouting Legion with her and settle down.

'What the hell am I thinking?!' Inner Rivaille tells him to stop thinking that way, since it would never happen. The Scouting Legion was their top priority until they die.

"Whatever Rivaille, but I know the truth whenever I see it." Hanji mutters, but says no more.

* * *

Spring came quicker than Lilith would have liked. She missed riding Nightmare through the snow every night once she was off duty. But now she was riding Nightmare to the Trost District, and behind her was her squad. She sped through the towns on the way there, and people made way for them and seemed to brighten as they rode past. Whether seeing the Scouting Legion's strongest made them have new hope, or they were just glad to catch a glimpse of the Colonel and the Corporal was beyond her.

Once arriving at the gate of Trost, Lilith jumps off of her horse and speeds up the wall, preparing to see the worst on the other side. She makes it to the top before the others did, and the Stationary Guards that were firing canons at any titans that got too close saluted to her as she walked by. She took a seat at the edge, letting her legs dangle over as she gazed through the destoyed towns of Wall Maria. It wasn't that long ago whenever she traveled through there on their last expedition, and it seemed like a dream.

"I take it that this is your first time seeing the devestation, right Colonel Ackerman?" A bald man with a grey moustache asks her.

She nods. "You are Commander Dot Pixis, am I correct?" Lilith asks.

"Don't call me Commander, young lady." Pixis says to her with a smile on his old face. He takes out a flask and takes a gulp, then hands it towards her.

"Want some?" He asks.

"No." Lilith growls at him. The rest of her squad had the same idea as her, and they either stood or sat and looked out at Wall Maria.

"Suit yourself." Pixis says with a shrug and gulps down some more wine before putting his flask away. "What I would like to know is why a beautiful young woman such as yourself is doing in the Scouting Legion while you could be living the normal life."

"There is no normal life anymore, sir. I've always wanted to be in the Scouting Legion since I was a child. Now that I am, I've realized that humanity needs people like myself to help protect them from the fear of being killed by titans. That is how I became the Colonel in such a short time."

"Hmm, your nickname spreads fear through people." Pixis tells her.

"So even higher-ups like you knows about that. I cannot help that killing titans is fun."

"I don't see how it is." He comments.

"I doubt anyone would understand the rush that I get from it. I'll be taking my tour of the area, now." Lilith tells him and stands back up, and she walks over to her squad.

"Let's go." She tells them, shooting her grappling hook down the wall and she moves quickly to the nearest roof. Rivaille was right after her.

Lilith walks across the roof slowly, searching for nearby titans. She smirks whenever a deviant starts leaping through the air.

"One target is closing in, I'll take care of it." She warns the others and speeds off before they could stop her from going by herself.

The titan leaps onto a clock-tower and hangs onto it. It didn't seem to notice her as she shot her grappling hook to the building across from it, and Lilith glides through the air at an angle, digging her swords into the back of it's neck. She enjoys the sound of it's skin ripping apart and the nape of it's neck was cut out. She lands safely on the roof and looks for more targets.

Auruo takes off and kills two titans with ease before Lilith noticed them. What catches Lilith's eye was swarms of titans ahead, all coming towards her and her squad. Lilith unleashes her true self and goes crazy. Her senses became more sharper, and she became more stronger.

The girl glides through the air quickly, and angers a titan by cutting it's hand off as she shot past it. It glares at her and spins around to try to catch her, but she was just too fast for it. Lilith does a front flip, slicing the nape of it's neck out while she dived forwards.

She slows her movements to check on her squad. Rivaille was doing perfect, and all of them together were killing titans left and right. That was until Hanji decides to try to talk to one that was staring at her while she stood on the rooftop. Lilith's eyes widen slightly, and she travels over to her as fast as she can.

Petra beats her to the titan and kills it quickly, and she lands beside of Hanji who looked mad.

"Don't scare us like that!" Petra complains to her.

Lilith lands next to the two women. "I think it's time we should go back. There's no way we can get past all of those without running out of supplies." She says and gestures to another swarm of titans coming.

"Head back to the wall!" She yells loudly, making sure they all turned around and headed back before she did.

On their way back, whenever they were so close to reaching the wall, a titan comes running after them. Since Lilith was in the back of the group, she decides to distract it while the others climb the wall, and she turns and goes left to lead it away. Her actions caught Rivaille's attention, and he pauses halfway up the wall to safety to make sure that Lilith would be okay.

"Shit, at this rate I'll run out of gas trying to get away from it. I have to kill it and get back to the wall." Lilith growls and turns her direction back to the wall, and she disappears from sight as she dives down into the streets below, tripping the titan with her grappling hook. As it fell, she runs across it's back and slices the back of it's neck.

She launches back into the air, and hooks the wall right whenever she ran out of gas. She stood there shaking her gas tanks so she could get the rest of the way up. The tanks rattle and then she presses the button. A small burst of gas shoots out and she makes it back to the top, where Rivaille glares at her.

"You shouldn't have done that." He tells her.

"I led it away so you guys could escape." She hisses right back.

"You could have made it to the wall before it caught up with you, and look, now you ran out of gas." Hanji grins as the two argue just because Lilith left for a few seconds.

"Sorry Rivaille, I'll try not to do it again. I just like being in action." Lilith apologizes, and she stares down at her feet.

Rivaille sighs and he also apologizes for overreacting. Their tour was a succes, because none of them was injured. Lilith and Rivaille tell Irvin how many normal soldiers it would probably take to retake Wall Maria, and Irvin shares this knowledge with the man in charge of the three branches of the military.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N- I have not updated in a while because school started back for me... Anyways, thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows!**

* * *

**Chapter 9**:

About four years have passed since the time she had toured Wall Maria, and Lilith was now twenty-two years old. Though she had been there several times in the past four years as they attempted to retake the wall. Her lips stayed in a straight line, and she had became more serious, but she still had a smart mouth whenever she felt like it. Lilith hated how heads turned to look at her every day as she walks anywhere. Rivaille felt that same pain though. No matter how uncomfortable the two were to be around, people still swooned over them. They were without a doubt humanity's strongest soldiers.

Lilith walks quickly to Irvin's office, her black tresses swishing around her. She doesn't even knock on the door because she had to voice her opinion. "Irvin, it's about time that we went on another expedition to Wall Maria. It has been nearly half a year since we last went. We need to take this chance to try to get a foothold for advancement."

"I agree. We will take the elite with us and leave in the morning." Irvin tells her whenever Rivaille walks into the room.

"Do you need me in charge of anything, sir?" Lilith asks Irvin, not even sparing Rivaille a glance as he stood beside her.

"Not until we retreat. That is when I want you to guard the injured from titans while they get back to safety."

"Understood." Lilith says flatly.

"And what exactly will I be doing tomorrow?" Rivaille asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Lilith can boss you around, that is, if you can keep up with her." Irvin smiles a little before it falters.

"Of course." Rivaille rolls his eyes and turns to Lilith. "What are you going to make me do,_ Colonel_?" He says _"Colonel"_ just to make her upset, but much to his disappointment, she acted like she didn't hear him say it.

"We'll see once we get there. On second thought, you can just do the usual." Was Lilith's reply before she left to get some sleep before tomorrow.

Lilith takes off her uniform and changes into something to sleep in. She left the locket around her neck, for she rarely takes it off. As she lies down on her bed, a knock came at the door.

"Come in." She figured it would be Rivaille, and it was. He trots over to the chair beside of her bed and sits down.

"Why are you here?" She groans and sits cross legged on her bed.

"I just felt like coming here, we hardly ever talk anymore since we have so much work to do."

"I know, but we will get to kill titans together tomorrow." Lilith says with a smile; she was probably one of the only people that enjoyed killing the beasts.

There was a while of silence, because neither of them knew what to say. There wasn't much to talk about, but Lilith remembers something from back whenever they were at the training grounds. Her heart twinged at the thought.

"Rivaille, I know it has been a long time, but do you remember whenever I told you we would exchange a secret?" Lilith glances up at him.

Rivaille raises a brow at the woman sitting in front of him. Moonlight shone through the window nearby, and it made her appear to glow in the dark. Her bangs framed her face, then she tucked them behind an ear with a swift movement of her hand. The Corporal sees that she had cut her hair; it was now a few inches below her shoulder blade. He thought that she looked beautiful at the moment, then realizes that he finds himself thinking that all of the time, even when she was covered in blood. He mentally smacks himself, knowing there is no time to be thinking like that.

"Do you finally want to tell me?" He questions. Lilith glances down to avoid his gaze. Rivaille's presence always made her nervous.

"I don't know if I should right now..."

"Lilith Eira Ackerman, you know you can tell me anything." Rivaille tells her smoothly, reaching towards her face. He places a cold hand on her cheek as he leans closer to her.

Lilith's cheeks turned scarlet. Her eyes flickered down to his slightly parted lips before she stares back into his eyes.

In the ten years that Rivaille had known Lilith, he had never seen her eyes waver from nervousness this much before. Lilith doesn't want to confess because of her stuborness, so she makes a different approach.

"Do you... do you like Petra?" She asks him, blinking several times to hide any emotion, but it did not work. Rivaille noticed the raw hatred swirling in her emrald depths that seemed to suck him in.

Lilith had noticed that whenever she was not around, Petra talked to Rivaille every chance she got, and to the point where she wasn't shy around him anymore. Hanji told Lilith that she better hurry and claim her prize before Petra steals it away, but Lilith did not want to hurt Petra's feelings. After all, she was the only other female friend she had besides Hanji, though Hanji hardly counted as a normal female. Jealousy consumed Lilith's heart and her eyes lit up with fire whenever she asked Rivaille if he liked Petra.

Rivaille thinks about the time he has spent with Petra over the years. It was by far a lot more than he spent with Lilith, so no wonder the Oriental questioned him about it. Lilith and he rarely talked anymore; she was always being sent places because the Commander was too busy to go himself. Rivaille noticed that Petra Ral opened up to him during those times, even though he was a bit rude to other people. Petra was a pretty woman; with her shoulder-length golden-orange locks that looked so soft, and a pair of large, amber eyes. Her personality was as nice as her looks were; and Rivaille liked her company because it was a relief from everything happening. The short man also found himself thinking about Petra very often, but did he_ like_ her? He was not sure himself what to say, so he just blurts out the quickest thing he could think of.

"She's a good person, but I don't like her in that way." Rivaille looks away from Lilith's glaring eyes.

Lilith nods and throws the blankets over her. 'Did he lie to me?' She wondered.

"Get out, Rivaille. I'm going to sleep." She was back to her normal self again, and it made Rivaille chuckle as he left the room with a smile on his face.

* * *

"Here they come! The Scouting Legion's elite forces!" Crowds of people in the Trost came running to see them ride by on their horses.

"Commander Irvin, kick those Titan's asses for me!" A random man yelled.

Lilith rode right behind Irvin, for she was second in command, and Rivaille and Hanji were near her, but they were a few lengths back. Hanji was now one of the top captains of the Titan research. She deserved it too, because she was obsessed with the beasts.

Lilith sweeps her green gaze over some of the people, but mostly the one's that wore their Cadet uniforms. They were staring at the Legion with amazement, and some of them cheer at her.

"Kill a shit-load out there today, Colonel Lilith!" Someone says and she gives them a confident smirk.

The three teens standing next to that guy looks at her with shock, and the sight of the female made Lilith's eyes widen. She hoped that no one but them noticed her level-headedness falter.

"Mikasa..." Lilith barely whispers at her beautiful sister before she looked ahead of her. She would wait to talk to her later after she came back, no matter how much she wanted to know if her sister had the same skills as she did.

"Look there's Rivaille, they say he's as strong as a whole brigade."

"Don't cut Lilith any slack either, she's on par with him."

Rivaille speeds up his horse and pulls it beside of Lilith's.

"Tch. I wish they would shut up already." He hisses.

Hanji pulls up on the other side of him.

"Maybe they wouldn't worship you so much if they knew how much of a clean-freak you are." And then the brunette starts babbling about titans.

The gates open and they head out. It wasn't long until everyone was split up and fighting Titans. As one man was being eaten, Lilith heard him scream, "You will fall to Corporal Rivaille!" And what do ya' know, that Titan did. He swooped through the air and killed it, doing a side-spin as he lands onto the roof. Lilith's brows furrow because Rivaille and her were too much alike, even whenever they were fighting. The raven haired woman lands next to him.

Petra arrives shortly with reinforcements.

"Corporal, I brought the reinforcements!"

"There's two titans coming on the left, one on the right. I'll take care of the ones on the left." Lilith says and walks calmly before jumping off of the roof and doing a flip.

"Petra, take care of that man down there, while you guys take care of the Titan on the right." Rivaille speeds off after Lilith.

He caught up to her while she was walking on the roof towards the two Titans.

"What interesting faces they have." Rivaille comments as one opens it's mouth widely.

"Mhmm." Lilith say's in agreement before she launches into the air.

She swings behind the closer one and kills it doing an 'X' shape with her swords. Her blades were dull as she hung onto the side of a wall, and she throws them into the other Titan's eyes. It screams in pain and Rivaille lands on top of it's head.

"Hold still or I'll never get a clean cut on your flesh." He say's to it and then kills it quickly. Whenever he turns to check on Lilith, she was gone.

'Figures. She's always running off to kill more of them.'

Lilith glides back to the ground while Rivaille takes care of the other Titan. She whistles for Nightmare, and her horse came running to her. As she climbs on, Irvin and the remaining soldiers ride up to her.

"We're going to pull back now." He says to her.

Lilith looks around and sees no Titans. "I assume they're heading towards the city?" She asks.

"Yes, something has happened there like five years ago."

* * *

Rivaille let's go of the dead soldier's bloody hand. Tears ran down Petra's face, but he didn't try to comfort her since she was always like that whenever she couldn't save someone. Irvin, Lilith, and the rest of the remaining Scouting Legion rode over to him.

"Rivaille, we're pulling back now." Irvin tells him.

"Oh? But we haven't even reached our limit yet." Rivaille had not reached his limit, but most of the other's had...

"The Titans are heading towards the Trost. Something has happened there." Irvin says while Rivaille and Petra grab a horse each.

"Commander Irvin, sir, I would like to scout ahead to see what is going on." Lilith says to Irvin, spinning Nightmare around.

"Be careful." Irvin says to her and she nods. Rivaille's icy eyes travelled after her, and he longed to be by her side.

Nightmare sprinted past the buildings, the sound of her hooves clicking on the roads drummed through Lilith's mind. 'It seems like every time I see Mikasa, something bad happens afterward. Five years ago I seen her before we went on an expedition outside of the walls, and then the Colossal Titan broke down the gate soon after. Then today, that damned bastard must have reappeared and broke through to the Trost.'

Lilith leans down in her saddle to make her horse run faster. It wasn't long before she yanked on the reins for it to stop before they entered the Trost. Screaming could be heard from the city, as well as the sounds of crunching, splattering, and crashing. Lilith sat up straight in her saddle to see all of the Titans walking around ahead of her, terrorizing the Trost.

She spun Nightmare back around to go and tell Irvin what was happening before the remaining soldiers lost their lives diving into the swarm of Titans. No matter how strong Lilith is, she highly doubts that she could take them all down by herself, even if Rivaille was with her. The Scouting Legion was moving slow because they were tired, so Lilith had to practically go all the way back to where she left them. She tugs on Nightmare's reins quickly, and the horse comes to a stop; dust flying around it's hooves.

"The situation is worse than I expected it to be. We need to go help the civilians right away." Lilith says to Irvin with a calm, but strong voice.

The sky started to cloud up whenever the Scouting Legion enters the Trost. They readied their gear before they entered, using the supplies that they had brought in the caravans. They were ordered to split up and help people get to safety, and also take down any Titans that interfered. The huge swarm that was blocking the entrance had all went away; and Lilith pondered if that was a good thing or not before launching herself into the air.

The raven headed woman glides through the air like she has wings. A person was being picked up by a Titan right in front of her, and it opened it's large mouth. Lilith's heart pounds faster as she swung through the air, slicing the Titan's fingers off of the woman, and she throws the tiny person over her shoulder before she lands on the ground. Lilith turns to the young woman, who had tears streaming down her face.

"T-Thank you, Colonel!" The woman says greatfully.

"You need to get away from here, fast." Lilith commands her before she shoots back into the air and kills the titan.

It didn't take long for Lilith to notice just how many new Cadets had died. Lilith catches a glimpse of Rivaille not too far away and heads towards him. Before she gets to him, signal flares were shot into the air. She lands beside of Rivaille on a roof.

"Do you know what's going on?" Lilith asks him, gripping the handles of her swords tightly.

"Not at all." Rivaille says and cleans off his swords that were covered in blood.

While he was busy cleaning his swords off, a Titan over fifteen meters comes over to them. Lilith shoots her grappling hook into the back of it's neck, and as she flies by it she does her signiture side-spinning move and kills it before returning to Rivaille.

He was staring at something not too far away.

"What the fuck is that?" He questions. Lilith follows his icy gaze and sees a Titan carrying a boulder in the direction of the gate. There were several people guarding the Titan.

"I don't know, but we should go check it out." Lilith says and speeds off; Rivaille follows after her.

By the time they got close enough to see what was happening, the Titan carrying the boulder had blocked the hole in the gate with it, preventing more Titan's from coming into the Trost. The Titan falls and starts to evaporate, and a blonde boy grabs someone out of the Titan's neck whenever they are surrounded by a couple of beasts.

"I'll take down the one on the left." Lilith tells Rivaille and she speeds through the air so quickly all the scared group of teens on the ground below could see is the emblem of The Wings of Liberty on her cloak. She slices through the Titan's scrawny neck before she lands down in front of the trio, her back towards them.

Rivaille quickly does the same, and he yells at Lilith, who he caught licking blood off of her mouth.

"Ackerman!"

"Yes sir?" A female voice says from behind him. The pair of Legion soldiers glance over their shoulder to see who had answered. That is whenever Lilith's eyes widen in shock as she seen her sister standing there.

The blonde boy and _Titan Guy_ look between Lilith and Mikasa. 'I'll just call him Titan Guy for now.'

"The C-Colonel is your sister?" The blonde says with shock to Mikasa. The younger Oriental stood quietly, staring her older sibling down.

"It has been a long time, Mikasa." Lilith says to her before Rivaille interrupts their reunion.

"Sorry to interrupt, but do you kiddos have any idea what is going on here?"

It didn't take long for the blonde and Mikasa to explain the situation as the _Titan Guy_ passed out. The rest of the Scouting Legion and Stationary Troops arrive and take care of things. The Scouting Legion takes the Titan Guy away, and Lilith learned that his name was Eren Jaeger, and the blonde's name was Armin Arlert.

"Eren!" Mikasa screams and reaches out to the brown haired boy as he was dragged away and thrown into a caravan. Lilith walks up to Mikasa and grabs the back of her jacket to hold her back before she went after them.

'I don't know why she's so obsessed over Jaeger, but I suppose it's where he is her _new_ family.'

"Let go of me!" Mikasa smacks Lilith's hand off of her. Any of the soldiers walking by paused to watch what was happening, including Rivaille, because Lilith was not one to tolerate disobedience.

"Give Eren back!" Mikasa starts to run after the caravan, and Lilith trips her. She did not understand fully what was going on, but she felt that since Irvin wasn't around that it was her duty to control her underlings.

"If you're not going to cooperate, then I will have no choice but to use force to restrain you." Lilith says darkly to her sister, who got back up to her feet.

Mikasa's short black hair swishes around her face as she yells at Lilith.

"Eren is my only real family left! You just left whenever I was a kid, and now all of the sudden you act like we've actually known each other for the past ten years! I do not claim you as my sister, Lilith!"

"I wouldn't be where I am now if I didn't leave, Mikasa. I cannot change the past, and I cannot help it that our parents were killed before I came back to visit right after I joined the Scouting Legion!" Lilith says, her brows furrowing. The Ackerman sisters were both losing their normal aloofness as stress came over them.

Petra, who was watching the scenes unfold nearby, tries to stop anything more from happening.

"Lilith, calm down," The petite woman says with an awkward smile, putting up her hands.

Lilith whips her head towards the person that said that to her, and she stops herself from snapping at the sweet little Petra once she seen who it was.

Mikasa's dark orbs glance down at the ground sadly, before they look back up at the now calmer Lilith.

"I am sorry for snapping at you like that, Colonel." Mikasa apologizes as she too calms down.

"Just call me Lilith." Her green eyes brighten some as she tells Mikasa that.

"Understood." Mikasa straightens up and looks down at Lilith, who was a few inches shorter than her.

Lilith places a pale hand on her sister's shoulder. "You and your friend can come with me if you want to be able to visit Jaeger. But there is no guarantee that he will be awake tonight, he looked pretty bad."

Mikasa nods with a small smile on her face. Lilith glares at the people staring at them, and they move on.

"Armin, let's go with Lilith." Mikasa called out to her blonde friend.

The blonde teen was the same height as Lilith, she noticed, whenever he came over. Armin salutes to her nervously.

"No need to be so formal, Armin." Lilith says softly to him.

"But miss, you are the Colonel and I respect you." He argues, his blue eyes widening.

"Then this is an order." Lilith hisses.

"Yes!" Armin says and lowers his arms back down to his sides, though he still stood stiffly.

"Now then, we should go get our horses."

* * *

Rivaille felt somewhat left out as he watched Lilith chat with Mikasa and Armin when they rode their horses behind the caravans.

'Lilith's attitude changed today once she was reunited with her sister. But it's not like she's ignoring me, because I haven't even tried talking to her lately, so I assume everything is fine. At least she made that bitch know what position she was in, though she could have been more violent. I like seeing that sadistic smirk on her face.' Rivaille looks back up to see that Lilith had halted her horse and was waiting on him. 'See, she's not ignoring me at all.' Inner Rivaille says happily.

Lilith grabbed Rivaille's horse by the bridle and tows him over to where Mikasa and Armin were waiting for her.

"I'm sure you know who this man is by now." Lilith says to them, pointing at Rivaille. She was jerked sideways while her horse trotted on rougher grounds, and her finger pokes Rivaille right in the face. He glares at her and grabs her cheek, yanking her face towards his. Lilith twisted her body around in her saddle so she wouldn't fall off.

'Now Armin and Mikasa are laughing about this. Could this get any more awkward? It could if Hanji came along.' Lilith glances out of the corners of her eyes to look around for the crazy brunette, and was glad she didn't see her.

Mikasa had turned to Armin, and they started to talk quietly. No one was paying attention to them, and Rivaille still held Lilith's face close to his, making her suffer for poking him. All of the sudden, his horse trots over rocks and it jars him, and his face smashed into Lilith's. Her soft red lips were on his own for a moment before they both jump away, blushing madly.

Mikasa turns towards her sister and notices her face was scarlet instead of porcelain like normal. Armin notices too, and he also sees that the Corporal's face was as red as Lilith's.

"What's wrong?" Mikasa asked, worried that they were starting to get sick.

"I'm just feeling a little... light-headed." She says to Mikasa before someone on a horse rides quickly up to them.

"No she's not, Rivaille just kissed her!" Hanji's mouth forms into a wide grin. "I have been waiting so many years for this moment." Hanji says, sounding proud.

"Fuck you Hanji!" Lilith yells at her.

"You should really try to understand the situation before you jump to conclusions, Shitty Glasses." Rivaille growls at Hanji.

Mikasa and Armin blink at each other.

"They're so weird." Armin whispers and Mikasa nods in agreement.

"Then if you didn't kiss her than what did you do?" Hanji asks, leaning forward on her horse.

Rivaille honestly did not feel like explaining anything, so Lilith spoke for him.

"He pinched my face like he normally does, and his horse jarred him and his face smashed into mine." Hanji still has that grin on her face after Lilith said that.

"If you two didn't like each other, then you wouldn't be overreacting like that." Hanji tells them before she moves around them and leaves.

Lilith covers her face with one hand in embarrassment. 'And I thought Hanji wasn't around! She just fucking pops up out of nowhere.' She peaks through her fingers at Rivaille. 'I'm starting to wonder what his lips really tastes like though. Eh, I'll get over it.' Lilith told herself in her mind.

Lilith drops her hand back down to her lap, and then she starts a conversation with her sister.

"Mikasa?"

"Yes?"

"What were our parent's like after I left?" Lilith asks, masking her emotions.

"Mother cried and told Father that he should have stopped you, but they knew that you wouldn't listen to them." Mikasa blinks sadly at her.

"I see... Did you notice that this horse was our family's before I stole it?" Lilith asks and pats Nightmare on the head.

"I did not... I cannot remember much from back then."

"There are so many things I want to talk to you about..." Lilith trails off with a sigh.

Mikasa nods in understandment, and the group was quiet for a while.

"Armin, Mikasa; what ranks did you graduate in?" Lilith asks curiously.

"I wasn't in the top ten, Miss Lilith." Armin tells her politely.

"I graduated as the number one student." Mikasa says.

"Mikasa is really strong, and they say she is worth a hundred normal soldiers." Armin says to make Lilith proud of her younger sister.

"Ah, so you inherited my talent?" Lilith smiles softly as she jokes with them.

"I suppose so." Mikasa smiles back at her sister.

"Rivaille is one of my few friends that I have, but he is the only one I can trust. I doubt I would have made it through the training grounds without him." Lilith says, changing the subject. The sound of his name made Rivaille listen to their conversation.

"I only trust Eren and Armin. There are a few others that I get along with, but it's not like I want to create more friendships." Mikasa tells Lilith.

"Miss Lilith, if you don't mind me asking, how did you become such a high rank whenever you were so young? I-I mean, you still are young, it's just that you-" Lilith cuts Armin off with a wave of a hand.

"I understand, Armin. Other people wonder the same thing. I honestly do not know why Commander Irvin chose me to be second-in-command instead of someone else."

"It's because you are one of humanity's strongest soldiers." Rivaille says to her, suddenly drawing attention to himself. "Back then I struggled to keep up with your strength and speed, but now we are equal, despite what other people say."

"I agree." Lilith nods in approvement. "Except for the part where you said you struggled to keep up with me back then. I think we were always equal." Lilith tells him.

Rivaille shrugs then sees the HQ up ahead.

"We're back." Lilith says and rides ahead of them because she couldn't wait to go to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N- Thank you to those of you that has reviewed! **

* * *

**Chapter 10**:

Lilith instructed the guards to let her, Mikasa, and Armin to be allowed to visit Eren. Lilith herself was curious of how he could transform into a Titan, and she was sure that Hanji would be all over the boy once he wakes up. That is, if she wasn't already.

The guards saluted to Lilith as she walks past them, heading into the Court Dungeon. Cold, damp air tickled her nose and made it twitch when she entered the dark halls. She turns her head slightly to Mikasa.

"The thing I hate about having such a high rank; people salute to you and are frightened as you pass by." When she was younger, Lilith enjoyed scaring other people...

Mikasa nods slightly and adjusts her red scarf. All Mikasa was worried about was seeing Eren before he had to be judged in several days. A couple of Military soldiers were sitting near Eren's cell, guarding him. They straighten up immediately upon seeing the Colonel of the Scouting Legion, but do not salute. Lilith seemingly glares at them.

"Unlock the door." She commands.

"But Miss, we were told not to let anyone close to him. He's dangerous."

"And so am I," Lilith taunts them, "He is still unconcious, so I see no problem with letting us visit him."

"He's chained to the wall, Miss." Armin says to Lilith, quietly. The kid did not want to stir up trouble.

"See? There should not be a problem. This is an order, unless you want to be sliced up personally by me." Lilith says with her flat voice.

One of the men finally gave in, and he unlocks the cell door. Lilith gives him a sweet, fake smile and she tells Mikasa to go see her friend before they needed to leave. Lilith watches as her sister walks over to Eren's bedside, and she stares down at his slightly tanned face with sad, dark orbs. Mikasa reaches a hand towards his face, and she gently touches it with a small smile on her pink lips.

Lilith hears the sound of the Dungeon doors opening and closing, and two pairs of footsteps were heard down the hallway.

"Mikasa, Armin, you need to leave quickly before anyone sees that you're here. If there is any trouble, I will take full responsibility for letting you in here." Lilith tells them, and she leans against a cold brick wall. Her emerald orbs disappeared behind her lashes as she shut her eyes.

Mikasa exits the cell, not complaining, though she had hesitated and sighed quietly, and saunters down the hall. Armin following after her quickly, not wanting to be left behind. The man that opened the cell-door shut and locked it back. Irvin and Rivaille enter the room as Lilith opened her eyes and just stared blankly at Eren's sleeping form.

"What are you doing here, Ackerman?" Rivaille's dead voice catches Lilith's attention.

"Am I not allowed to be here?" Lilith retorts, her eyes narrowing at Rivaille.

The said man ignores her snide remark, and walks over to the cell and places a hand on the bar and he looks at Eren. Eren suddenly sat up and started to panic because he was in chains, but he soon calms down. 'Mikasa, you left a moment too soon. He just woke up.' Lilith thinks to herself.

"Listen up you peice of crap, what do you want to do?" Rivaille asks Eren.

"I want to join the Scouting Legion... and slaughter all of the Titans," Was Eren's unsteady reply. His large turquoise eyes wavered.

"Oh?" Rivaille's eyes glowed with a curious glint. He walks over Irvin, who was now sitting in a chair. "Irvin, I'll take responsibility for this brat. Tell that to the others." Rivaille walks back over to Eren and places a hand on the cell once again as he looks at the boy. "It isn't that I trust him; if he loses control or betrays us, I'll kill him right on the spot."

Lilith bites her tongue to stop herself from saying, "That is if you can get past Mikasa and I." She wanted to be on Mikasa's good side; to earn her sister's respect. Defending Eren would probably be the only way to do so. And, Lilith highly doubted Eren would turn against them.

"They shouldn't complain, because only I could do it. I accept your request, Eren. You can join the Scouting Legion." Rivaille says. Eren's eyes started to waver with emotion once more.

Lilith leaves the Dungeon to go to the cafeteria of the building to eat, not wanting to be there with Rivaille any longer, not after the awkward thing that happened last night on their way here. She hadn't seen him interested in something this much in a long time, and this time it happened to be Eren.

* * *

Mikasa and Armin sit across from each other, eating quietly. Lilith stands nearby, holding some bread, and clears her throat softly to catch their attention.

"Can I sit here?" Lilith asks, pointing to the spot next to Armin.

"Y-Yeah." The blonde stutters.

"Why are you so nervous around certain people?" Lilith asks him as she sat down.

"It's just that your presence... it sends fear through me." Armin replies quietly and he looks down.

"I try." Lilith says bluntly and takes a bite of her bread whenever a tall boy with light brown hair sits down next to Mikasa, but not that close to her.

Lilith swallows her bite of food quickly, and decides to taunt the boy.

"Did I give you permission to sit down within my presence?"

"C-Colonel Ackerman!" He says loudly and straightens his posture.

"That's my name. What is your's?" Lilith raises a slim brow at him.

"Jean. Jean Kirschtein. I am sorry for interupting your lunch." Jean says apologetically and gets ready to leave.

"No, it is fine. You may stay as long as you don't bother my sister." Jean becomes slightly nervous at those words, causing the older woman to smirk.

Jean sat nervously, taking several glances at Lilith, then Mikasa. After a few moments of silence, he spoke.

"You look like an older version of Mikasa." Jean blurts out.

Mikasa glances at him from the corner of her eye, but ignores him other than that.

"I have been complimented for the second time today." Lilith hisses with annoyance. "Mikasa, is Jean one of your friends?" She asks curiously.

"Somewhat." Came Mikasa's quiet reply, and she takes a drink of water. The girl's face was unreadable.

* * *

Rivaille walks briskly through the cafeteria, scanning the crowd of people eating for Lilith. It did not take him long to find her, and he walks over to where she was talking to several younger people. Rivaille stands several feet away from the Oriental woman. Lilith glances out of the corner of her eye at him, upon sensing another person nearby.

"What is it, Rivaille?" She asks him.

"You are to go help clean up the mess back in the Trost; Irvin's orders. Have fun with the brats there." Rivaille says icily to her before walking off.

"I come all the way back here for nothing?!" Lilith's brows furrowed and she growled.

"I-I have to go there, too." Jean's voice made Lilith raise her head back up.

"You two don't have to go, do you?" Lilith asks, looking at Mikasa and Armin, who shake their heads.

"Well then, Jean, we better leave now." Lilith finishes her food and stands up.

"Yes ma'am!" Jean says to her.

"I will be back in a few days; take care, Mikasa, Armin."

The only person in the unit that she led that she knew was Jean, and she barely knew him at all. Lilith didn't like this. Somehow she missed the hyper Hanji, the rude Rivaille, and the sweet Petra. But she needed new friends, and she knew this. Lilith slows her horse, and calls out to the only name she could remember out of the unit.

"Jean Kirschtein?"

"Yes?" He answered. He wasn't that far behind her.

"I would like to speak with you for a moment." Jean pulls his horse up closer to her's so that she could speak normally with him.

"Are any of your friends interested in joining the Scouting Legion?" She asks, striking up a conversation with Jean.

"I'm not sure; some used to." He replied after thinking a moment.

"Let me tell you something; if you find one of your friends dead out there, try not to let your emotions take over. The last thing this world needs is for you Cadets to be giving up on everything."

* * *

Lilith walks through the streets that were filled with bodies. Some younger soldiers around Mikasa's age were taking a break. Most of them had shocked looks on their faces, and some of the more emotional ones were crying. If they couldn't even handle this, then there is no way that they could handle going on an expedition with the Scouting Legion, because it puts so much stress on a normal person's heart. However, Lilith had built walls around herself to block out anything that she may feel from watching someone being eaten. That is what made people like her so important, because they do not get sidetracked if someone they know gets killed.

"AHHH!" A girl with a ponytail screamed as she walked by. Lilith was bored, and plus the girl was sitting near Jean, so he must know her. The raven headed woman walked over and stood in front of the girl that screamed.

The girl's chocolate brown eyes lock with Lilith's stern green gaze.

"Uhm, what can I help you with, Miss?!" The girl composes herself and speaks properly.

"It looks like you need a break from this. Are you hungry?" Lilith asks.

The girl's eyes went wider than they already were at the mention of food, and she was practically drooling.

"I am, Miss."

Lilith extends a hand to her. "I am Lilith Ackerman, but you probably already knew that. It is nice to meet you." The girl grabs ahold of Lilith's hand with both of her's, and shook them excitedly. The fright from just a moment ago disappeared from her eyes.

"I am Sasha Braus. It's nice to meet you too, Miss Lilith!"

"No need to be so polite," Lilith takes Sasha's hands off of herself. "Do you and your friends want to join me for dinner?"

The only reply she got was a nod. Sasha frantically runs over to her friends, waving her arms around and shouting, "Colonel Lilith invited us to eat dinner with her!"

'This Sasha person seems nice. Maybe I can make new friends? Ha, making friends with younger people is quite odd. Oh well.' Lilith smirks inwardly.

Lilith, Sasha, Jean, Connie, Ymir, and Christa sat around a fire that did_ not_ have burning bodies in it and ate as the night came. Sasha had hungrily gulped down her food, and Lilith looked at the baked potato she was holding, then back at the hungry girl. Lilith wasn't that hungry anyways, so she hands the potato to Sasha.

"POTATO!" Sasha says happily and wolfs it down.

"That's Potato Girl for ya'." Ymir says with a sly grin.

"Potato Girl?" Lilith questions, and Christa answers her.

"Back during our training days, Sasha ate a potato during the intruductory ceremony. Our instructor got really mad at her, and made her run laps until she was on the verge of death." Christa's kind voice says, and her bright blue eyes twinkle as the fire pops and crackles.

"No one had the guts to stand up to that Keith Shadis, did they?" Lilith sighs and looks down at her feet. "He wasn't as mad as I thought he would be whenever I did. He only told me that I wasn't allowed to eat that day."

"Miss Lilith, you aren't as scary as I thought you would be." Connie says.

"I am not the flawless hero that is completely unapproachable that everyone deems me to be. I am nice whenever I want to be. I don't all of the time follow my orders whenever I do not agree to them." Lilith replies. "What are your opinions on the Scouting Legion?" She then asks them.

"It's suicidal." Jean barks out.

"J-Jean!" Connie yells at his friend, and the group of teens stare at Lilith, wondering what her reaction to that would be.

"That may be true, but what isn't nowdays? It doesn't matter what branch of the military you join, you are still going to have to fight the Titans. If you thought that you could get an easy life guarding the king, then you are wrong." Lilith states flatly.

The group was silent for a while, thinking over Lilith's words. Then Potato Girl speaks.

"I would actually like to join."

"Nice decision. I'll see if I can pull some strings and get you into my own squad, since I don't even have one. That is, if you don't leave during Commander Irvin's recruiting speech. It won't be too long until then." Lilith tells Sasha, who blinked at her nervously.

"Are you good at fighting?" Lilith then asks the brunette.

"I am better at eating, Miss!" Lilith cracked a smile while the others laughed.

"At least you are honest." Lilith says, the smile still on her face.

* * *

The next couple of days went by quickly, and Lilith had met several other friends of Sasha's; Annie, Reiner, and Bertholdt. Lilith strides past the burning bodies. The smell of burning flesh made her sick, and she held her breath even with a cleaning mask on. Once she was far away, she gasps for breath as she rips off the mask.

'If I die I don't want to be burned like that, but I am sure those people didn't either.'

"Miss Lilith, thank you for helping out here!" Some Stationary Guard member bowed to her.

"You are welcome. I'll be leaving now, if you don't mind." The woman that bowed to Lilith shook her head.

"We'll finish things up here." She says before walking off.

Lilith walks to the stables where her horse was being kept. The people that was in the unit she led here were on their horses waiting for her. She climbs onto Nightmare quickly, and they head back to the Scouting Legion HQ.

They arrive back by sunset, and whenever Lilith walks back into her office, she found that there were too many people in there for her liking. Rivaille was sitting on the couch beside of Eren, and Hanji was crouched in front of the said boy. Commander Irvin and Mike was also there.

"His tooth grew back already... Ah, welcome back Lilith!" Hanji says as she spots the raven haired woman.

"You're Mikasa's sister, right?" Eren looks at her and asks. He seemed nervous around the soldiers in the room.

"I am. I take it that things went well today at the Court?" Lilith asks Irvin, who nods.

"Rivaille went a little overboard with beating Eren, but he's recovered already." Hanji says to Lilith.

"It had to be done." Rivaille boredly tells Lilith.

"Right..." Lilith mutters. "Irvin, please inform me of what I am to do within the next few days."

"Rivaille's Special Operations Squad is going to take Eren to the old Scouting Legion Headquarters and standby for a while until our next expedition. You will come with me to welcome the freshly graduated recruits, as well as help us form a plan."

"If they cause any trouble make sure to discipline those brats for me." Rivaille says coldly.

"Of course, Rivaille." Lilith replies just as coldly.

The two venomous people sparked an interest in Eren. He wonders if something happened between them to make them talk like that to one another, or if that is how they normally speak to each other. Whichever it was, he'd find out answers somehow later.

Everyone eventually leaves the office, leaving Lilith, Eren, and Rivaille alone. Lilith sat at her desk reading a book that was filled with information about Titans, while the two males sat together on the couch. Rivaille stands up.

"Watch this brat for me while I go take a shit." He says bluntly and leaves the room.

"I swear he's something else... He's changed so much since I first met him; and I'm not sure if it's better or worse." Lilith sighs and sits her book down. Eren sees this as his chance to find out more about her and Rivaille.

"Uhm, Lilith, can I ask you something?" Lilith blinks at Eren.

"Of course." She replied.

"Are you and Corporal close?" Eren asks curiously.

Lilith was taken aback by that sudden question.

"I wouldn't exactly say that we are, but that's a matter of opinion. Something happened that night after we retook the Trost that made us more distant."

"Will you tell me?" Eren was keen on knowing what happened. He thinks that Mikasa's sister is an interesting person. She was like a safe that had to be opened up to find something, and that made her all the more intriguing.

"Rivaille accidentaly... kissed me. We were talking and his horse caused him to be jerked forward and his face crashed into mine. Hanji made a big scene about it, and I really don't want it to be mentioned again. I suppose that's why we haven't talked much since then." Lilith explains to him, then her expression darkened. "Eren, if you tell anyone, I will slice your throat, even if you are Mikasa's friend."

"Understood, ma'am." Eren scratches his earlier thought about her. 'She's more talkative than I thought she would be.'

Nothing else was said between the two because Rivaille came trotting back into the room. Lilith quickly opens her book back up before he asked if they had been talking. They stayed up all night to watch Eren, who dozed off on the couch so Rivaille sat in a chair nearby. Lilith was dying on the inside for them to talk like they used to.

"Death Angel." Rivaille says suddenly, making Lilith sit her book down.

"What was the "_Search and Destroy_" mission like?" He asks her, striking up a conversation.

"It was just wonderful." Lilith snides. "I got blood all over my hands as I dragged filthy dead bodies around. The smell of burning flesh made my stomach churn. You wouldn't have been able to stand it, clean freak."

Rivaille's eyes narrow at her.

"I wont miss you at all." He growls at her.

"I wont miss myself either." Lilith snorts.

"That's great, because now you can die without worrying about anything." Rivaille retorted.

"I'll come back to haunt you."

"I will get one of those Wall Preists to exorcise you."

"Asshole." Lilith hisses.

"Bitch." Rivaille hissed right back.

Lilith's gaze softens and she apologizes for starting an arguement. Eren, who was listening to the whole thing, held back the urge to smile.

Then her head starts to ache to the point where she bit down on her bottom lip, and it started to bleed. Rivaille was going to make a smart-ass remark about her apology whenever he notices her face become more pale than usual, if that was even possible, and blood trickled down from her lips.

"Are you okay?" He asks her whenever she stands up. Lilith stumbled and gripped her head.

"I'm going to go to my room." She says in a hoarse voice. Rivaille could sense the waves of pain coming from her, and he jumped up and opened the door for Lilith. That's whenever he seen the dark bags under her eyes.

"Thanks." She mutters to him before she left the room.

Lilith didn't make it very far down the hall before she collapsed against the wall. She hadn't slept in days; the night after they came back from Trost was the last time that she did, and that was only a nap. Lilith forces her legs to move and eventually she made it to her room. She didn't even bother to change out of her uniform and collapsed onto her bed.

'Finally, I can sleep. One of my favorite things to do.'

* * *

Lilith walked around to see Hanji's test subjects. It wasn't the first time the crazy woman had captured Titans to experiment on, but Hanji actually named the beasts. Hanji turns around to ask Lilith if she wanted to try speaking to Bean or Sonny, and so she walked with Hanji up to the one named Bean.

"Can I touch it?" Lilith asks, eyes shining different shades of green in the sunlight.

"Sure!" Hanji replied happily.

Lilith crouches down and touches the Titan's face. It's skin was just like a human's. Lilith then prods it's forehead, and it suddenly tried to snap at her. Luckily she did a backflip to get away from it, and she dusts herself off and then looks up at Hanji.

"I want to kill it." Lilith states flatly.

"You can't! They're like my children!" Hanji screams at her.

"Then can I see if it reacts to any pain?" Lilith raises a brow at Hanji.

Hanji seemed skeptical about it, but then she eventually nodded. The other Scouting Legion soldiers that were around watched as their Colonel started kicking Bean's head around. Bean's mouth was agape as Lilith kicked it right in the eye. The woman notices that they were just as easy to kick around as a human was. Whenever she heard Hanji scream she stopped and stepped away from the Titan.

"I got my boots covered with blood." Lilith growls under her breath.

"Squad Leader, why are you screaming like that?" Someone asks.

"Because Bean is in so much pain!" Hanji answers.

"If he is in so much pain, then I need to leave." Lilith tells Hanji, and she left the experimenting grounds.

The next day, Lilith was eating with Commander Irvin Smith whenever a messanger came running up to them.

"The test subjects have been murdered!" The person tells them franticly.

"Let's go, Lilith." Irvin says quickly; the two went to go see what was going on.

Hanji was crying because her Titans were killed. The Special Operations Squad stood there with Eren. Eren turns his head whenever he sees Commander Irvin and Lilith approaching him.

"Sir!" The boy says with surprise.

"Eren, who do you think the enemy is?" Irvin puts his hands on Eren's shoulders and asks.

"Huh?" Eren didn't seem to understand the question.

"Nevermind, sorry for asking you strange questions." Irvin shakes his head and walks off. Lilith stayed put.

"Let's leave. We'll let the Military Police handle things here." Rivaille says to his squad. He stops in his tracks to stare at Lilith for a breif moment.

"Be careful training those brats. Make sure you get some sleep before then." He smirks at her before walking off. Petra gives Lilith a smile as she walks past, and the other four people just glanced at her as they followed Rivaille.

Lilith's heart twinged at seeing Petra on Rivaille's squad. 'He hand-picked soldiers to help him guard Eren, and Petra was one of them. Why am I getting jealous for? It's not like I could have been on his squad anyways, because I'll have my own to look after soon enough. Besides, why should I even care if he does like Petra? She's a lot nicer than me. I've even told myself before that he would be better off with her because I'm not meant to be more than friends with anyone; too much fighting. Rivaille's been with other people before, or at least that's what the rumors I heard said. You know what, I really don't care anymore. Getting Wall Maria back is my top priority; I will not let _anything_ come in between me and my goals.' A low growl rumbled through her throat and she swished around to go back to the HQ.

* * *

"I'm the Commander of the Scouting Legion, Irvin Smith..."

Lilith stood to the side of the stage beside of Eren with a couple other officers as Irvin gave his speech. It was long and honorable, and he mentioned their goal to get back to Shiganshina so that Eren could find answers in his basement. The raven haired woman peeked around the corner at the crowd. Irvin had just told them that over 90% of the Legion's soldiers had died in the past four years. Lilith was one of those lucky 10% that never got killed, or even injured, and it was very unlikely that she ever would. Irvin and Rivaille were the other two that has the similar skill as she does. But things happen, and anyone could be killed.

"According to our most optimistic estimates, we will have to sacrifice at least five times more soldiers and twenty more years before it will be possible to dispatch a large force to Wall Maria again. Even these figures aren't quite realistic."

Lilith remembered that it was her that would take over commanding the Scouting Legion if Irvin ever happened to be killed. That is, if the other higher-ups in each military branch agreed with it. If Lilith and Irvin are both killed, then it was more than likely Rivaille that would be the next Commander. Lilith couldn't imagine being a higher status than she already was, let alone leading the Scouting Legion. 'I just hope that man will last a long time, maybe even I'll die before he does. It'll be a huge blow to mankind if either of us do get killed though, and some would give up all hope on humanity if they seen that even the strongest fall to the Titans.'

Irvin hides nothing from the recruits, even saying that 50% of them were likely to die, and that if they did survive then they would be excellent soldiers with a high survival rate.

"Those of you who are still willing to put your life on the line despite learning about the dreadful stat of affairs, stay here. And let me repeat this again; those who do decide to stay here and enter the Scouting Legion will probably be dead soon. Listen to your hearts and ask yourself if you really have what it takes to sacrifice yourself for mankind. That is all. Those wanting to join other divisions are dismissed."

One man standing next to Lilith asked Irvin if he intimidated them more than necessary. Lilith spats a reply to him before Irvin does.

"Do you have a problem with telling the truth?"

"N-No ma'am." The man stuttered and shut his mouth.

Lilith watches as almost every single person leaves. Sasha was crying, and the other's looked frightened except for Mikasa, who stood as calm and stoic as always.

"So will you be able to die if you're told to?" Irvin asks the remaining teens.

"We do not want to die, sir." A shaky voice answers.

"Everybody, you all look determined. I salute to your bravery, and I welcome you to the Scouting Legion!" Irvin smiles at the kids and salutes.

"Yes, sir!" Every one of them replies, standing with a salute.

"The 104'th Scouting Legion salutes to all 21 of you. You have endured fear well, you are now brave soldiers. I respect each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11:**

A snowflake landed on Lilith's face, almost blending into her skin before it melted. The air was crisp and cold as it started to snow, and this was the weather she liked. Sadly, her enjoyment came to an end whenever she reached her destination; a building near the HQ that is being used as a school for the Cadets. As soon as she opened the door, a heat-wave washed over her. With a scowl on her face, Lilith shut the door behind her.

"Colonel Ackerman." The teacher of the rookies nodded to her politely upon seeing her enter.

Lilith watched Dita Ness from the corner of her eye as she turned away from the door. "Captain Ness," she muttered and blinked at the bandana-wearing man, "We need to discuss the strategy Commander Irvin came up with." Lilith handed a rolled-up paper to Ness.

Ness unrolled the paper and let his gaze roam over it before he nodded his head and grunted in agreement. "So the rookies will be mostly on the right wing?" He questioned, lifting his gaze back up to meet with Lilith's.

"That is correct. You will be in charge of them, of course," Lilith tilted her head slightly in thought, "But as you can see, I am also going to be in the right wing. I managed to convince Irvin to let me choose where I wanted to be at in the formation; and I thought being with the rookies would be the best choice, since they are not very experienced. Irvin wanted me to be up front with him, but the kiddos need protection," the raven-head said. "I'll be in Line 2 File 2."

"I see..." Ness trailed off and rolled the paper back up. "I'll go make a larger copy of this and show it to the class once they arrive. If I'm not done by then, can you keep them in line for me?"

Lilith's emerald depths hardened as her eyes narrowed at the man.

"Asking your surperior to do something for you..?"

Ness chuckled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry about that, Colonel. I meant if you want, you can watch the class for me."

"Of course. They are interesting," Lilith says and crosses her arms under her bust. The sly smirk on her face told Ness that she was just messing with him seconds ago. He sighs and walks into a different room.

Lilith's lips twitch back downwards into a thin line as the door opens, and the Cadets walk in. She clasped her hands together behind her back, and waited for them to be seated. They spoke to each other in hushed whispers, casting curious glances at Lilith. Certain faces caught her attention, and Sasha burst out with a smile once she saw Lilith.

"Quiet, Cadets. Captain Ness will be back momentarily, but until then, I am in charge of you. Today you will be learning about '_Formation For Long Distance Enemy Detection._' This plan has increased the expected survival rates, but there is still no guarantee that you will live." Lilith looks at the crowd of Cadets. Some of them had shocked faces, making Lilith '_tsk_' under her breath as she shook her head at them.

"Don't act all scared. I will be there to save your asses, unless of course you want to fight instead. But if you think I can save each and every one of you at one time, then you are mistaken. Being in the Scouting Legion, you recruits must learn how to fight on your own," she tells them. Lilith sees Ness come out of the back room with a larger poster, and he hung it up for the class to see. "I'll leave the rest of the explaining up to your Captain Ness," the Oriental woman says and exits the building, once again getting to enjoy the cold air.

* * *

"You'll have to be on my squad some other time, Sasha. You're nearly on the other side of the formation."

Lilith was watching as the tall brunette chowed down on her dinner. Sasha was disheartened to hear that she couldn't be on Lilith's squad this time. The younger girl swallowed roughly and wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand before speaking.

"What if there isn't another time?" Sasha asked with a hint of sadness in her voice. Though they hadn't known each other long, Lilith had really taken a liking to the Potato Girl, and didn't want her to be feeling down at the time she should be getting ready for the 57th expedition.

"Don't talk like that," Lilith said quietly, but with a strong voice. "We'll meet up eventually; the formation will split up after a while."

"You're right," the Braus girl shut her eyes and sighed, then opened them back up with new light glittering in them, "Let's go have some fun before we have to leave!"

Lilith propped an elbow onto the table and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. She rose a slim, dark brow at Sasha, questioning her to explain what kind of _fun_ she meant. Sasha grinned, then her mouth started to quiver with excitement.

"I heard the old Scouting Legion Headquarters has a really good chef there; we're going to go see what kind of food they make!" Now the girl was drooling, and Lilith narrowed her eyes at her.

"We- no, you must not go there." Lilith said strictly.

"Why?" Sasha asked.

"Because that is where Eren Jaeger is being kept. Besides, by the time we get there it would be completely dark out. Not to mention it will be extremely cold."

Sasha still grinned at Lilith. "But you like this kind of weather; and who cares who is there? I'm an expert in this stuff, we won't get caught." Sasha stood to her feet and grabbed Lilith's sleeve, yanking her to her feet also.

"Sasha-"

"Shh!" The brunette cut off Lilith, holding a finger to her mouth to silence the older woman. Sasha was acting childish at the moment. "Everyone's going to bed right now anyways; they won't notice us gone. Let's go get some horses!"

'What have I gotten myself into?' Lilith wondered as she stood with Sasha in front of the stone castle of the old HQ. The moon was covered by clouds, and a few snowflakes were starting to fall, dusting the ground. A gentle breeze caressed Lilith's hair around her face, and Lilith tucks her bangs behind an ear to stop them from getting in her eyes.

Sasha opens her mouths slightly, and sticks her nose into the air. Then she turns to Lilith with a crazed look on her face and in her eyes. "Come on, I smell something really good this way," she waved Lilith over to a door that led into the castle, and the girl opened it without hesitation, and went inside. Lilith reluctantly followed her, shutting the door behind them.

Sasha crouched down and slid to hide behind a stack of wooden crates. Lilith did the same, letting her eyes adjust in the dark castle. The only light was from a few lanterns down the hall, and from a couple of windows, but that didn't help much since the moon was hidden. The Oriental reaches forward and taps Sasha on the shoulder, and the girl turns her head to look at Lilith.

"Why exactly did I come with you? I'm not even acting my age or rank right now! I'm acting like a Cadet!" Lilith spat quietly at Potato Girl, who didn't even flinch at Lilith's harshness.

Sasha smiled a bit, her white teeth bright in the darkness. "It's because we're friends," Sasha tells her and turns back around. Her chocolate eyes glance back and forth before she snuck down the hallway. Lilith sighed and stood back up, walking as silently as she could down the hall.

Sasha comes to a stop in front of a large, wooden door. The brunette leaned on it, sticking her ear against it to see if anyone was inside of what she presumed was the kitchen. Lilith stood a few lengths behind her, waiting boredly. Sasha glanced back at Lilith, whispering, "I'll go in and grab some stuff."

"I'll watch your back. Please, don't make a racket and wake everyone up." Lilith says, her gaze hardening at Sasha. Sasha salutes proudly, giving the woman a smile before creeping into the kitchen. Lilith crouched down against the wall, watching for any movement nearby. A small shadow appeared and Lilith tensed, ready to spring up and run, but then it turned out it was just a cat.

The cat's eyes gleamed in the darkness. It trotted up to Lilith, who extends a hand out for it to sniff. She loved cats, but couldn't keep one at the HQ because Irvin won't let her. He had said some people wouldn't want an animal running through the halls and making people trip. Had Rivaille let this cat in, or did it sneak in like she had? They didn't lock the door, so that means someone must be awake at the moment. And as Lilith thinks everything will be fine, the cat runs into the kitchen.

Lilith's half-lidded gaze wonders after it. Suddenly, there was a large thud, and the cat bolted out of the kitchen and down the hallway. The woman jumps up, and runs to see if Sasha was okay. Sasha was sprawled out on the floor with a container wrapped protectively in her arms. She grins up at Lilith before getting to her feet.

"Hehe, I tripped," Sasha laughed nervously. Lilith scowls at her and shoves her out of the kitchen, making Sasha stumble before she started running towards the exit. Lilith did too, but someone was approaching them quickly.

Sasha made it out of the building, and the girl fled to her horse. Behind her, Lilith was kicked to the floor. When her attacker crouched over her, she immediately kicked them in the stomach to get them away from her, but then regretted it once she seen who it was.

"Rivaille," Lilith didn't say the name kindly; she wasn't happy to see him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The short man asked, slamming the heel of his boot into Lilith's gut.

Lilith nearly gasped with pain, but gritted her teeth instead, not wanting to show any signs of weakness around him. "Why wouldn't I be here?" She asks him, and his brows furrowed.

"Don't make things any more difficult. Just answer the question, Lilith," Rivaille was actually quite surprised to see that Lilith, of all people, would come to the old castle. But then he seen the Cadet she was with, and he assumed they were spying on his squad.

"Are you going to hurt me?" Lilith asked timidly, making a pouty face at the man glaring down at her.

"I thought I already was," he kicked her in the side just to see her face screw up in pain.

"This isn't fair, you know I won't fight back!" Lilith curled up on the cold floor and held her aching side. She was lucky he hadn't kicked her in the ribs, or else she would have a couple of fractured ones.

"Pitiful," she heard Rivaille spat. Her half-lidded gaze met his, and they glared at each other. "Were you spying? Is that why you came here?"

"Not at all." Lilith shakes her head slightly and gets to her feet, resting one hand on her side that was surely bruised. "I just felt like visiting you."

"Oh?" Rivaille crosses his arms with a questioning glare in his icy eyes. "If that is so, then why did you bring a Cadet with you?"

"She was my escort," Lilith lied, hoping the serious look on her face was enough to convince him.

"And you decided to run whenever you hear someone coming?" The Corporal asks. He was starting to get amused by the situation.

"I figured you would be mad because I came so late, so of course I ran," Lilith told him. She figured this conversation was going to take a while.

"I wouldn't say I'm mad... Actually, it's quite the opposite. Your lies are amusing, Colonel Ackerman," Rivaille smirks, and Lilith frowned at him.

"Whatever," the woman hissed, "I'm going now. It wasn't nice seeing you." Lilith gingerly touched her side and walked off towards Nightmare.

Rivaille spared one last glance at the woman who was climbing onto her horse before shutting the door, severing his gaze from her. Petra came up to him as he walked back down the hallway, rubbing her eyes before asking, "What happened?"

"It was just a cat that sneaked in."

* * *

"Sasha, I hope going through that trouble was worth it for you," Lilith sweat-dropped at the brunette sitting in front of her. Sasha nodded and smiled softly.

"Sorry that I left you behind!" Sasha bowed her head, almost hitting her forehead on Lilith's desk.

"You was supposed to, smart one. I didn't get that hurt. So what did you take from the kitchen, anyways?" Lilith asked.

Sasha's head rose back up, and her large, brown eyes locked onto Lilith's. "Some potatos, bread, and sausage. I should have saved you some, it was so good!" Sasha sighed happily.

"I didn't want anything. You Cadets needed to have some more edible food than what they serve you here," Lilith says with a small movement of her hand. Sasha had split the food with her friends, and Lilith was glad to hear that.

The girl's gaze broke suddenly from Lilith's, and she avoided eye contact. Lilith wondered why the girl did this; she was never frightened to stare someone in the eye while talking, so something must be wrong with her. No trace of her smile from earlier was left on her face. Sasha seemed distracted by something, and when she looked back up at Lilith, her face was serious.

"Want a cookie?" Sasha asked, digging through the pocket of her jacket and grabbing a small bag. Lilith literally face-palmed; Sasha was too serious when it came to food.

* * *

One month later, on the way to Karanese District, Lilith rode quietly on Nightmare. Her gaze was on the reins that were clenched tightly in her hands. She had never felt nervous about an expedition before, so why now? Was it because this was the first time her sister would be fighting with her? Or was it because she was worried about Rivaille? Lilith hissed under her breath, and Nightmare's ears twitched backwards at the sound, to listen to her.

Lilith leaned forward and scratched the ageing horse between the ears to sooth it's curiosity. The raven-headed woman closed her eyes momentarily and sat back up. Thoughts clouded her mind. Her shoulders were tense, as well as the rest of her body. Her knuckles turned a shade paler from clenching onto the reins, revealing the old scars that she assumed had faded away long ago.

'What the hell is wrong with me today? It's not like me to worry about people at all... let alone him. That's not it, I'm afraid. But of what? Is this what normal people feel; fear? All I know is that something bad is going to happen. That's the only explanation. I'll have to be more alert than usual.'

A tap on her shoulder interrupted Lilith's thoughts. She tilted her head slightly to the side, meeting large, amber eyes that was beaming with confidence. Petra had a small smile on her face, but it looked more like a worried one than a happy one. Lilith wondered why Petra was away from her squad, and she glanced back through all of the people behind her. She found Rivaille's slick, black hair quickly. It stood out from the crowd of soldiers around him. However, she could not see his face, so she looked back to Petra.

"Can we talk?" Petra asks shyly. "I'll make it quick, I promise."

Lilith nods. "Just hurry up, you need to get back to your squad," Lilith's eyes narrow as she focused on Petra.

"Captain Rivaille has seemed more... distant lately," Petra started, choosing her words carefully, "I know you came to the old Headquarters that night. I heard your voice, so I decided not to bother you and Rivaille..." The small woman glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to them before looking back at Lilith. "I can tell he cares about you, and I can't help but to be angry about it!" Her usual soft, sweet tone rose spitefully, making Lilith want to flinch away.

"You have known him for a long time now, and so have I... I-I wish that you would make up your mind whether you love him or not already! If you don't make up your insane mind and choose, then I will for you! We used to be friends, Lilith. I cannot stand you anymore because I have been there for him ever since we joined the Scouting Legion, and you just stop talking to him, saying you don't have time for friends because of your occupation. Well, you have made quite a few friends among the Cadets, now haven't you? And yet you can't even spend some time with someone you've known nearly your whole life? I wish that he would realize that I will always be there for him, and that you are just a selfish, sadistic bitch that only cares about bloodshed and nothing else!"

Lilith was mortified by the way Petra had snapped at her. Her eyes still held confidence; confidence of knowing that she was the better pick between the two for Rivaille. Deep down, Lilith knew that every single word Petra had said was true, and it hurt. Lilith's cold heart felt like it had been shattered by a hammer. She wished that she could change the past, but that was impossible. All that is left is the future, and it was unlikely that she could change that, either. Lilith's lips parted, and she was going to give Petra a reply, but the woman had already went away, back to Rivaille's side which she belonged at. Petra left their conversation hanging uncleared in the air, and Lilith wanted to settle things once the expedition was over.

'Was that the bad thing I felt was going to happen?' Lilith wondered. 'No, I still have the feeling of unease...'

During her time of thinking, she hadn't even heard Irvin's booming voice ringing through the crowd to get them pumped and ready for the battles ahead. The gates opened with a screech. The Legion headed out on their 57th expedition. They didn't make it that far before a ten-meter class approached them, but they had to leave it to the defense team to kill it for them. Eventually, the formation split up, and Lilith rode solo, giving her time to organize herself.

She came to the conclusion that she hated herself more than anything. Lilith just had to ruin everything for her and Rivaille. The only thing she needed to worry about at the time was making sure Eren made it to his basement in Shiganshina to find answers. Wait, that was Rivaille's squad's job. She just had to help out in the process.

"Lilith, quit losing your calm," Lilith whispered to herself.

No titans were spotted for a while; she hadn't even fought one yet; and Lilith started to wonder if they could actually make it further without any losses. But Lilith knew better than that. There was no way they would make it further without anyone getting killed. It wasn't that she didn't think the Legion was strong enough; it was more like a rule of nature that titans will always overwhelm humans.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lilith spotted two horses approaching her's quickly. She tugged gently on Nightmare's reins and slowed her down to a trot so that the soldiers could catch up with her. Squad Captain Ness's bandana stuck out like a sore thumb, and Lilith matched names with faces quickly.

"Captain Ness, Cis, what is it?" The Oriental beauty asked once they were within hearing distance.

"Honestly, we spotted you and came to see if you know what's going on," Cis told her with a nervous, half-smile. He reached a hand behind his head and tightened his ponytail. Lilith's eyes widened slightly; an action that Ness caught.

"Ah, don't tell me even you don't know!" The man groaned, "No flares have been shot from the right flank in a while now-" He was cut off by Lilith.

"I'll go check on them, keep going onwards," she said with a strict, cold tone. Lilith kicked Nightmare in the flank and she rode off at top speed towards the direction Line 2 File 1 should be.

Wind whipped Lilith in the face and stung her eyes. She quickly pulled on her hood to keep her hair from flying everywhere. It wasn't but a matter of seconds before she seen a group of titans running with another. But, it looked more like they were_ chasing_ this 14-meter class Female titan.

'So this is the reason some of the right flank has been inactive,' Lilith concluded.

Something caught the attention of the group of titan's, and they left the Female and headed behind a small patch of trees. Screams echoed in Lilith's ears, and she blocked out everything around her and focused on the Female titan heading her way. Lilith analyzed her target. It no doubt had intelligence; one could tell just by looking at it. She reminds herself to be careful and launches into the air, gliding past it's shoulder. One of it's large eyes followed her, then looked down to Nightmare, who was trotting away to stay out of the fight. Lilith's face contorted with anger as she realized what this giant bitch was thinking, and she twisted in air to head towards the nape of the titan's neck before it reached her horse.

However, as soon as she reached her destination, the titan rose a large hand and covered the back of it's neck. Lilith landed on it's hand and started slicing away, but to no prevail. Lilith had to drop and replace her dauled blades quickly. Suddenly, it's other hand came flying towards her, and she barely jumped out of the way in time before it hit her. Lilith landed on the ground gracefully, getting ready to launch herself at the Female titan once more, but she instead stared in horror at the scene in front of her.

Nightmare, who obviously didn't think titans would harm her after so many years of experience, did not run as the Female titan came within striking distance. Everything around Lilith seemed to be happening so quickly, and she felt like she was stuck in slow-motion as she started running helplessly towards Nightmare as the Female titan's leg shot out, kicking the horse so hard that it went crashing towards the patch of trees where the other titans were. The sound of Nightmare's bones cracking, and the sound of tree branches splitting from the impact froze Lilith to her spot. The Female titan seemed to smirk as Lilith glared at her, and she ran off once seeing Lilith gave up with fighting. The Oriental woman ran, faster than she thought she ever could with her gear on as grief and shock took over her body, towards the blood-covered horse. Lilith did not care about anything happening around her; she lost her usual aloofness so quickly it was shocking.

Some dying man was reaching towards Lilith, trying to speak to her as she dropped to her knees beside of Nightmare. His words never reached her ears. Nightmares eyes were wide open, with the white part showing from fright. Her stomach heaved harshly as she tried to breath, and Lilith found that it was hard to breath herself upon seeing her life-time companion like this. A sob caught in the woman's throat, and she coughed slightly to make it go away. Then she examined Nightmare to see if there was anything to do that could help.

Nightmare had deep cuts and splinters scattered across her once beautiful black pelt. Something that looked sharp and white jutted out where her rib-cage is, and Lilith knew that the rib-cage had been destroyed when she seen the bones that had torn through the skin of the horse. There was nothing Lilith could do to help, except let Nightmare no longer suffer from the pain.

In one hand, Lilith unsheathed a sword, and with her other hand, she rubbed her blurry eyes. She refused to let the tears to spill over her bottom lashes. She stood up and quickly shut the horse's eyes. Nightmare already looked more peaceful her breathing slowed.

"It'll be okay, you won't suffer any longer," Lilith smiled down at her horse softly, before she stabbed her through the heart. In one, swift movement, she ended Nightmare's suffering and retracted her blade.

Lilith flicked the sword to the side to get some of the blood off, then she unsheathed her other sword and turned to face the group of titans that were watching her with curiosity. Every other human was dead around her, and she stepped around them, shooting into the air. She shot her grappling hook into the back of one's neck, swinging downwards and slicing a hunk out of it before moving onto the next one.

"I don't know how they lost to your sorry asses!" Lilith roared with rage, referring to the dead all around them. She didn't care about what happened to herself anymore; she displayed her emotions through action. Once done, she panted heavily and landed on the ground next to her dead horse. She didn't care that she beat her record at killing so many titans in minutes.

The woman sheathed her swords quickly. She wrapped her arms around Nightmare's muscular neck and hugged the large animal one last time. Lilith's cloak and the sleeves of her jacket underneath was coated with blood, but she didn't care. She buried her face into the side of the horse's neck and her whole body shook with emotions; be it grief or anger. Lilith did not want to leave Nightmare's side; and she realized that she couldn't make it far without a horse anyways. So she just stayed where she was.

"I'm so stupid! I shouldn't have left you; I should have screamed at you to run... It's all my fault; I have ruined every single good thing that has ever happened in my fucking life!" Her voice was cracking and her bottom lip quivered. Streams of tears ran down her pale cheeks as she let all of her bottled-up feelings out at once. "Look at how pitiful I am, Nightmare. I'm crying because I hate my mistakes so much. I will never forget you or all of the time we shared together. I know you would have had to die some time, all creature's age catch up with them eventually, but it just doesn't seem real to me right now."

Lilith let go of Nightmare and stood up slowly, wiping her face off with the back of her hands. Then Lilith unwound her white chiffon scarf and placed it gently on Nightmare's neck. That was the only thing she could think of giving her horse; she had no flowers, and it wasn't like Nightmare would be carried back for a funeral, though Lilith wished it was possible. Nightmare and all of the other dead would be left to rot, no matter what she said to the other Captains.

The raven-headed woman sauntered away. The only thing she could do now was walk and hope that she could find another horse. Though it wouldn't be the same as riding on Nightmare. Lilith was lucky that Nightmare hadn't been killed earlier during her career; most horses do not last long when they are with the Scouting Legion.

Lilith brought two fingers to her lips and whistled. Then, she kept walking. Away from Nightmare, and away from the right flank that she did not save. She could have saved them, but she was too focused on other things to even bother. That wasn't like her at all.

A flash of white caught her attention from the horizon. Her half-lidded gaze locked onto a white horse that was running towards her. It look absolutely stunning against the vast green fields; it's white tail was kinked upwards as it ran up to her. It halted and reared several hundred feet away, as if it wasn't sure if it could trust her. Lilith held out a pale hand, coaxing it silently to come to her as she examined it's features that were so much like her previous horse's.

It had a wedge-shaped head with large eyes, small muzzle with large nostrils, an arched neck, and it's build was lean and well-muscled. This horse obviously had speed and endurance like Nightmare had, but it only looked like it was a bit over a year old. That explains why it took timid steps towards her; it was still shy towards most people.

When it's warm muzzle pressed against the palm of her hand, Lilith's heart was warmed. This horse did not have a saddle on it, nor a bridle, so Lilith wondered if this horse was even owned at all. It could have been an offspring of horses that never made it back inside of the walls once expeditions were over with. If that is the case, then it would not be tame at all. Then why did it choose to come to her? There were so many things that could not be answered, but Lilith was glad she finally got something to transport her around. Lilith needed to get back to the rest of the formation and fight to make up for her earlier losses. So, the woman reached a hand to scratch it between the ears. It's head reared backwards at her sudden movements, but she calmed the horse down before stroking it's mane.

"You will be my partner now. What should I name you?" Lilith questioned quietly. "You look exactly like Nightmare, but you are different colors obviously. Hmm, what's the opposite of a nightmare?" She thought for a second before answering herself. "Daymare," Lilith smiled a bit, getting used to the feeling of the name rolling off of her tongue.

As if Daymare liked her name, she neighed and tossed her head around. Lilith's new horse pawed the ground impatiently, and the woman could tell it wanted to run. She placed both hands on it's bare back, hoisting herself onto it. Daymare skitted around, but didn't try to throw her off. Lilith leaned down and pet the horse's face, and spoke to it softly.

"Run, Daymare," Lilith wondered what it was like riding a horse without a saddle, since she hadn't done that since she was a kid. Saddles weren't that important, right? Lilith lightly hit Daymare's flank and the horse took off at nearly top speed, causing it's rider to squint her eyes against the cold wind.

Lilith gripped ahold of the horse's mane, and held onto it for dear life. She'd hate to fall off when Daymare was going so fast. At least they were going the right direction. The Oriental wondered if the other's took care of that damned Female Type. If they didn't, she would die getting her revenge on that beast.

* * *

"You heard the man, Petra. Go," Rivaille ordered his only female subordinate.

"Yes, sir!" Petra says, veering her horse in the other direction.

A messanger had told them to spread the word through the left flank of the formation that the right flank had been wiped out. From what information Rivaille had gotten about the formation, he knew that Lilith was in the right flank. He didn't doubt her abilities, but surely, if she was there then titans couldn't have gotten this deep already, right?

'Something's happened to that dumb woman. Tch, she probably went crazy and got herself killed. I wonder what Petra was talking to her about earlier? Probably me, unfortunately. It seems I'm always the popular topic for women to talk about nowdays,' Rivaille thinks sarcastically, nearly snorting with amusement.

The Lance Corporal's icy eyes glance around at his squad, looking them over. They seemed to be bored, just like he was. Except for Eren. Eren was curious about everything that was happening. Rivaille could tell the boy wanted to learn as much as possible on his first expedition. Rivaille thinks back to his first expedition; he was excited, of course, but he didn't show it as much as Eren did. Then the man's thoughts trailed back to Lilith, remembering him fighting side-by-side with the pale-faced woman.

'How long has it been since we have fought titans together? Damn, it's been a long time. She's been acting odder than usual ever since...' Rivaille scowled upon remembering that embarrassing moment, 'Stupid bitch! Why can't she get over that?'

Several pairs of eyes were set upon Rivaille. Rivaille looked around at his squad, raising a brow to question them. Eren opened his mouth to speak, but Gunter beat him to it.

"Sir, you said something about a stupid bitch..." Gunter trailed off, nervous to say any more.

Rivaille mentally slapped himself. He quickly came up with a lie to dismiss their thoughts. "I was talking about a dog that I found."

His squad shut up, but none of them believed what their Captain told them. This time, Rivaille made sure he was not speaking aloud as he thought once more.

'I told her once I'd protect her; what a lie. I haven't done such a thing in years. I haven't even talked to her in a while. Pfft, stupid woman, making me think about her.'

* * *

Lilith coughed out another mouthful of blood as she tried getting back to her feet. She could feel unconsciousness enveloping her mind like a warm blanket, tempting her to slip away. The woman refused to do so. The Female Type turned on her heel and ran off, once again, leaving dust clouds behind. Daymare seen that no danger was around anymore, and ran over to her master, bumping her head into Lilith's side. This caused Lilith to yelp in pain, and the Oriental collapsed onto the ground after all of the effort she had put into making it halfway up.

The Female Type didn't get away from her unscathed, either. Lilith made sure of that. But by now her missing hand and eye would probably be regenerated. The titan had bested Lilith; slinging her to the ground like it was nothing. Lilith still couldn't believe that she caught up with the Female Type so quickly, and that their fight had lasted longer than expected. Now, if only Lilith could get back up, she would know what to expect when fighting the titan next time.

Lilith hadn't seen any living human for a long time now. The Female Type killed every one that got in her way. Lilith was starting to wonder if they should retreat, though they hadn't even gotten very far. The woman placed a weak hand onto her horse's neck for support. She placed the other hand on the gash that started from her right hip and went across her stomach. Her cloak and shirt had been torn open; and the woman still questioned when she had gotten her wound. Her fingers were soaked with blood within seconds. Lilith's forehead was slick with blood, and the red liquid caked in her hair. She remembered the Female Type back-handing her in the head, then she was left behind on the ground as the beast escaped from her again.

She took off her cloak and pressed it against the gash to try to stop the bleeding. Lilith climbed onto Daymare and kept holding the once green cloak against the wound, and controlled the horse with her other hand. Her chest rose up and down quickly as she panted for breath in the cold air. She licked her blood-covered lips off, and closed her eyes momentarily. Lilith looked like a wreck; but yet again, the wounds made her look bad-ass at the same time.

No matter how badly she wanted to fight with the Female titan a third time, Lilith knew that she needed to tell the rest of the people before the beast got to them, too. There were two people that came to her mind first that she knew could help her fight the Female Type; Mikasa and Rivaille. It would ruin her pride if she went up to Rivaille half-dead, then again, what did she have to lose now? Lilith had already ruined a lot today on this expedition. She was not performing nearly as good as usual, her emotions were overwhelming her thoughts, and to top it off, she didn't even have a gun to shoot flares into the sky with. It had been lost whenever Nightmare was killed...

Lilith spun Daymare around to make her go in the right direction. Up ahead, in the distance, you could see a forest with huge trees. The Female Type disappeared behind those trees, and Lilith rode quicker to catch up with it. The titan was no doubt trying to find a certain person; or more like the person inside of the titan was.

When Lilith halted Daymare near the entrance of the forest, she noticed many titans gathering around the bottoms of the trees, looking up. The woman's emerald gaze went up into the branches, and she seen some soldiers standing there. Armin's voice piped up against the rest of them, speaking as clearly as he could from their distance apart.

"Miss Lilith; you're not supposed to go any further into the forest than that!" The blond boy yelled. Lilith frowned at him.

"Who said so? I only take orders from Commander Irvin himself." Lilith told the boy.

"It was the Commander that said so; none of us are allowed any further, we just have to make sure no more titans enter the forest," Armin cupped a hand around his mouth to project his voice.

"Sorry, Armin, but I'm not going to listen to the rules," Lilith waved to him and flanked her horse, riding further into the forest. A loud voice called after her.

"You're injured Colonel! Stay put!"

"I am only one person; it doesn't matter if I lose my life as long as I save more lives!" Lilith yelled back to the man.

No more could be said because loud explosions that sounded like cannons rang through the forest. Daymare tossed her head around wildly and pranced around in a scared motion. Lilith patted the horse on the head to calm her since she was not used to all of these sounds. Lilith treaded on carefully, not sure what to expect; Irvin hadn't told her about this at all. Did he not trust her enough to know about this plan?

Lilith rode quickly over an old wooden bridge. At the edge of her sights, she could see the Female Type pinned down. The humans around her looked so small compared to her enormous size. One of the soldiers spotted Lilith, and the person so happened to be Mike Zakarius. He stuck his nose up in the air and sniffed upon her arrival. The dirty blond-haired man's face scrunched up slightly, and his sharp gaze seemed to penetrate Lilith as his gaze met her's. He could tell she was injured, and he thought the woman didn't look like she would be conscious much longer. The Oriental halted her horse and looked at Mike with a questioning look in her eyes.

"Why was I never informed of this?" Lilith asked icily, her gaze looking towards the titan, but her voice drowned out by a vicious scream of the Female Type. Lilith lost her hold on the fabric she was holding against her still bleeding wound, and brought both hands up to cover her ears. Her eyes automatically squeezed shut, and her head pounded so hardly that the pain was almost unbearable. Lilith could feel the ground vibrating as a hoard of titans came running towards the sound of the Female Type in distress. Lilith tried to open her eyes so she could make a clean escape into the trees, but the only thing that welcomed the raven-haired beauty was an excruciating pain, then a dark abyss.

* * *

There was no way even all of the elite could break through the crowd of titans that were eating the Female's flesh. The human inside must have escaped during all of the commotion, and Rivaille was getting pissed off. Irvin told him to go refill his gas tanks and his swords, even though he still had enough left to make it back to the Karanese, but he obeyed his Commander's orders. Rivaille tapped the tanks to see if they were in place whenever he heard a roar. It was a roar of anger, and the only person it could have been was Eren. The man took off after the sound.

As the Lance Corporal glided skillfully through the '_big ass trees_', he did a double-take upon seeing every single member of his squad dead. One face in particular made him pause in mid-air. Petra's body was leaned up against a tree; one side of her face was covered with blood and her neck looked like it had been snapped. His icy gaze held no emotion and he continued on towards his destination.

Rivaille spotted Lilith with her back to him, trying to chase after the Female Type. The black-headed man shot forward without a second thought to save the last living person he cared about, despite the fact she didn't want to be around him. Rivaille didn't care what the stubborn woman thought, he'd make sure they'd have a talk after all of this was over. He hooked an arm around her slender waist and pulled her with him towards a branch.

"Friend, fall back for now," he told her quietly and calmly.

The woman broke out of his grasp, and he looked away from her and gave some orders, though it wasn't really his place to order her around. Together they went after the Female Type, which had apparently kidnapped Eren. He didn't really pay attention to what he was saying at the moment, and something about being Eren's childhood friend slipped out. Rivaille didn't know why he asked Lilith that, but she never answered him. Lilith swooped down and away from him to draw the Female Titan's attention towards herself.

Rivaille used this split second to slice downwards on the titan's back after he kicked it in the eye. The Female fell with a crash. When he looked back for Lilith, he seen her shoot her grappling hook into the back of the titan's neck.

"Don't!" Rivaille called out to her, but she never listened. The Female Type's hand rose up and prepared to smash the woman agaisnt the tree, but thankfully, Rivaille was quick enough to dive in and rescue her in time.

Rivaille kicked the large hand away with so much force that a sickening crack came from his leg. He gritted his teeth as he sliced through the titan's mouth and grabbed the saliva-covered boy. A sense of relief washed over him as he seen Eren was alive.

"Eren!" That wasn't Lilith's voice; she wouldn't have said a name that kindly. Rivaille glanced back at the woman, and Lilith's image changed to Mikasa's. So this whole time he thought he was with Lilith, he was actually saving Mikasa's ass instead. They looked a lot alike; but there were some major differences in them like their hair length and eye color. Somehow he didn't like the thought that he had mistaken Mikasa for Lilith, but he decided to act like he knew it was the younger Ackerman the whole time.

'Your existance is like air; even if you aren't here, it's the same,' Rivaille thinks to himself, wondering where Lilith actually was at the moment.

* * *

Rivaille walked through the Karanese District with a slight limp, but tried not to show it. Petra's father, who was holding a letter, came and greeted him excitedly, hinting that Petra liked him. Rivaille's gaze darkened, and he never looked at Petra's father, only ahead. He lost not only Petra, but most of the only humans he could get along with. Lilith was still nowhere to be seen, but he didn't want to look worried about her by asking people where she was at. Rivaille did not want to think about what would happen to Eren or Irvin now that they failed the mission.

Later that day, Rivaille limped towards his room, his eyes glancing at Lilith's. Somehow his feet carried him there, and he stood silently for a few moments, thinking she would sense him there and come rushing to the door to greet him. But he knew that isn't how she acts anymore. He rose a fist and knocked a few times, then waited to see if he would get an answer. He never did, and he placed a hand on the door knob.

As he twisted it to open the door, he said, "It's Rivaille." Rivaille's gaze swept over her dark room. It was cold in there, and everything looked neat and tidy, as though Lilith hadn't even came back. If she had, then she'd be asleep right now; which she always did after coming back from an expedition. Something on her bed caught his attention, and he hopped over on one leg to see what it was.

It was the locket he gave to her years ago. Why she left it there, he'd never know, but he was sure that she never went anywhere without it, even if she disliked him. It was like her good luck charm. He picked it up gently and curled his fingers around it as realization dawned upon him.

_Lilith had left him, too._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12:**

_Lilith had left him, too._

Well, that is what he thinks. Somewhere in his cold heart, he hopes that she was just gone talking to Irvin, or on a walk or something. Rivaille shoves the locket into his pocket, and closes the door behind him as he leaves Lilith's room. He limped towards Irvin's office, knowing that was the only person left that he could talk honestly to. There was still Hanji, but he didn't feel like being around that crazy woman at the moment.

"Irvin, I'm coming in," he says quietly and pushes the large doors open. The Commander of the Scouting Legion sat looking out of the window, even though there wasn't much to look at. Rivaille sat down on a cushioned chair, waiting for Irvin to acknowledge his presence.

"Rivaille, they managed to salvage her," Irvin's rough voice says. Though the blond man could not see Rivaille's face, he could imagine the questioning glint in his icy eyes.

"Pardon?" Rivaille asked. Irvin spun around in his chair, his expression darkened his features. He folded his hands together on top of his desk, and stared Rivaille down.

"I should have figured you wouldn't know. You wasn't there, after all," Irvin sighed deeply, closing his blue eyes that were filled with guilt.

"What are you talking about? Or more like, _who_ are you talking about?" Curiosity got the better of Rivaille.

Irvin shook his head sadly and covered his face with a hand. The other man in the room sensed Irvin's unease, and didn't question him further, thinking it would make him feel worse then what he already does.

Rivaille didn't even lower his gaze in respect. The man could only guess why Irvin was so upset, and he turned on his heel and strode out of the office. Or more like limped. He could feel the bandages wrapped around his leg loosen with each movement, and he was being careful not to injure his leg further. With him injured, the Scouting Legion's reputation was bound to go downhill. People will stop giving them funds for expeditions once they hear two of the strongest can not currently fight. Humanity will realize the true power of the beasts that are close to wiping them off the face of the planet.

The black-headed man limped to the cafeteria, spotting the rookies Lilith always talked to instead of him. His eyes widened slightly with surprise whenever he seen Lilith sitting beside of the Potato Girl with her hair tucked inside of the hood of the jacket she wore. Rivaille walked over to them, and when Lilith turned her head to look up at him, he frowned, seeing it was Mikasa instead. Mikasa's short hair fell around her face, hiding the scar on her cheek. Lilith's younger sister's dark orbs were filled with sadness, but her body language did not express that emotion. She still looked as stoic as always. Sasha Braus looked over Mikasa's shoulder at him with large eyes filled with grief. Why wasn't anyone telling him what was going on? Why did everyone look so depressed?

Both of the girls looked back down at their untouched food. They didn't bother saying anything to him. Rivaille nearly hissed and limped away. He decided on going for a walk to get some fresh air. He shoved open the large doors of the entrance; and was met by a cold breeze that ruffled his short, black hair. An unpleasant chill ran down his spine, and he wondered how Lilith could like this weather so much.

The sky was covered with gray clouds; making it look like snow was coming. Hardly any people was outside, but then the doors of the paramedic building opened, and it caught his attention. Hanji, who had a mask on, was helping Eren carry a stretcher that was covered with a white sheet. Eren had not been sent to the capital yet; the boy was supposed to spend a couple of weeks here before then. In that time, he would surely form a plan to escape having to go.

Hanji and Eren carried the stretcher past Rivaille and towards the morgue, which was a small, old building next to the HQ.

'Another soldier died from their wounds,' Rivaille thought haughtily, then he realized something. Hanji hardly ever carries the dead over to the morgue; something was up, but Rivaille couldn't tell what it was. One would think that Hanji would wave and call out to him like she normally does when she walks by, but neither her or Eren said anything. They only spared him solemn glances as they passed.

'Even Hanji, the normally crazy woman, seems depressed. Now I'm really wanting to know what happened that I have not been informed about. And where the hell is Lilith? Is she at the capital right now, or have I just overlooked her somewhere?' Rivaille grits his teeth in frustration, and prepares to continue on with his walk until he heard a thud nearby.

He looks over his shoulder to see Hanji on her knees with her face buried in her hands. The stretcher laid on the ground, and Eren stood awkwardly next to the brunette woman. Eren looked down at the stretcher and he gasped, seeing the sheet covering the body had fallen down enough to reveal the person's face. He reached to pull the sheet back over the person's face before anyone seen who it was, but Rivaille was quick, and he grabbed Eren's wrist and slung the boy backwards and out of his way. Rivaille caught a glimpse of that beautiful porcelain face that he had grown accustomed to, and he glared at Eren and Hanji.

Rivaille's glare seemed to speak for him. He was pissed off that no one had told him that the Colonel was dead. She was the last person left that he would risk his own life to save; and yet, he did not fufil his childhood promise to her. He wasn't there protecting her. He didn't go wherever she went. He went screwing around with other women, hurting their feelings and such. And yet, Lilith never did fool around with other people's feelings like he had; she only focused solely on her job. He did it to make himself feel better; to try to fill an empty hole in his heart.

And now he sees Lilith looking more peaceful than ever. She looked like she was asleep, but she had a new sense of coldness around her. When Hanji had dropped the stretcher Lilith was on, the Oriental had partially slid off. Hanji wiped her eyes off and looked at what Rivaille was doing. Eren stared in wonder also.

Rivaille crouched down and placed gentle hands underneath of Lilith's shoulders, and he placed her back onto the stretcher. He seemed to be in some sort of trance. His usual icy blue eyes were daul with lack of emotion. He didn't act like this whenever he seen Petra dead; because he didn't like her the way he did Lilith. Rivaille took Lilith's hands in his own, his brows furrowing slightly at the coldness of her skin. He almost expected to see those cat-like green eyes of her's flutter open, but they never did. Rivaille did not care that he was touching a dead person. He let go of her hands for a second to grab the locket, then he placed it in the palm of her hands and curled her fingers around it so that she wouldn't let go. It's not like she could, anyways...

Rivaille still stayed crouched beside of Lilith, and he looked over at the watery-eyed Hanji.

"How did she die?" He asked quietly.

"I-I'm not exactly sure myself," Hanji started, "But I think she passed out from her injuries and she died somehow... No one knows what really happened, she was lost in the swarm of titans after the Female Type screamed."

"I see," Rivaille whispered and gazed down at Lilith's face. He could see a cut across her forehead that her hair hid, _mostly_. Someone had cleaned the blood and dirt off of her, and he assumed Hanji did. He should have known that Hanji couldn't bear to see Lilith dead; that's why she broke down and started crying. Even Rivaille had a hard time not letting himself give in to his emotions. Rivaille thought back to the last time he had actually talked to Lilith; and it was only for a few minutes, plus he hurt her. He felt bad that that is how they left things between themselves. He was sure Lilith had regrets, too.

The short man stared at the ground to look away from Lilith. He heard Hanji sobbing agian, causing his brows to crease even further. He grinded his teeth together to stop any words from coming out of his mouth. He decided it was time he said goodbye to Lilith, and his long fingers trailed over her smooth wrist put his hands on top of her's. Rivaille could have swore he felt a faint pulse, but it could have just been where he moved her slightly. He took the locket out of her hands, and placed it gently onto her neck where it should have been. Then he felt a slight movement again, this time in her neck, causing his face to go from a scowl back to normal as he looked over to Hanji.

"Hanji," Rivaille spoke louder than earlier to catch her attention. The brunette looked over at him, and so did Eren. "I felt her pulse." Hanji's eyes went wide and she nearly toppled Rivaille over as she scrambled on her hands and knees over to Lilith's side.

Hanji placed two fingers on Lilith's wrist, and then on her neck. She didn't believe Rivaille at first; thinking he was just imagining things, but then Hanji's mouth formed an '_o_' shape from astonishment, and she nearly squealed with happiness and jumped up. She spun around to face Eren, who had a hopeful grin on his face.

"We need to get her back to the paramedic building, quickly!" Hanji said loudly and grabbed her side of the stretcher. Rivaille wanted to scoop Lilith into his arms where she would be safe, but he couldn't carry her with his injured leg; he could barely cary himself around as it was. Eren picked up his end, and they rushed back towards the paramedic building with newly found determination. Rivaille followed them as quickly as he could, not wanting to be seperated from Lilith a second time.

* * *

Rivaille watched as Hanji laid Lilith down onto a bed. Eren had been dismissed moments ago to go tell Irvin that Lilith had somehow came back to life. It was odd how things worked out in this world. Rivaille seen Lilith's lips parted slightly to draw in air; and he could sense the beams of happiness radiating off of Hanji. 'The Angle of Death won't die that easily, she still has to bring death to more titans,' he thought and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a small smirk.

Out of the corner of his eye, he seen Hanji leave the room. She muttered something to herself, but Rivaille couldn't quite make out what it was. He grabbed a stool that was next to the window and pulled it over to Lilith's bedside and sat down. Lilith looked so still; she looked like she was dead again. Rivaille pressed the palm of his hand against her face to see if it had warmed any. His long fingers trailed across the pale skin, and without realizing what he was doing, they ran over her lips. He sighed and took his hand off of her.

Moonlight started to shine through the window. Night had come quickly, and Rivaille could barely hold open his eyes. He soon dozed off, and he slumped against Lilith's bed. Hanji finally came back into the room, holding a warm looking blanket in her strong arms. The woman paused and leaned against the doorframe with a smile on her face as she looked at the pair in the room. Rivaille looked comfortable with his head resting against Lilith's chest.

'Must be the nicest pillows he's ever slept on,' Hanji smirked to herself, walking over to the bed and covering Lilith with a blanket. Luckily, she had brought a spare, and she draped it over Rivaille's shoulders. She was quite surprised he hadn't woken up and punched her in the face, so she assumed he must have been very tired after the long day. She made sure Lilith was fine before she left. On her way out of the room, Hanji closed the door as softly as she could.

* * *

Rivaille's eyes snapped open to find his face implanted in the one place he did_ not_ want Lilith to see him at. If she happened to wake up and see him like that, she'd freak out and likely pass out from lack of energy. He stiffled a yawn, closing his eyes for a second, then when he opened them back up, a pair of emerald green eyes stared into his icy ones. Rivaille blinked again to make sure he wasn't seeing things, and he sat up straight, getting off of Lilith. He ran a hand through his slightly missed up hair, smoothing the tussled strands back down. Lilith's eyes followed his every movement, but he could not tell what she was feeling. She either felt nothing at the moment, or she was masking the expected blush with a calm face.

They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Rivaille waited for Lilith to speak. Her mouth parted slightly, and he watched as her light-red lips formed words.

"Rivaille...," Lilith said in a hoarse voice, then she cleared her throat. Her face scrunched up from pain, then returned to normal. "Why does my body hurt so much?" Lilith's voice was quiet and hoarse, since she had just woke up.

Rivaille wasn't sure what to tell the Oriental. He had only seen the cut on her forehead, but he knew she had to be injured in other places, too. All he could come up with was telling her what he knew about the situation.

"You died yesterday, Lilith," He says with a calm tone, his eyes softening slightly. Lilith tried to sit up, but gripped her stomach in pain. "Stay still!" He barked at her, standing up quickly. She glared at him when he tried to put his hands on her shoulders to push her back down.

"Then why am I alive right now? Am I dreaming?" She asked bluntly. Rivaille shrugged and shook his head at her.

"I'm not sure what happened to you, but when you were on the way to the morgue, I felt your pulse. You better be thankful you weren't buried alive, woman," Rivaille said in his usual, strict voice.

"It probably would have been better if I was," Lilith muttered, looking away from Rivaille to look out of the window. It was still dark outside, probably a couple of hours before sunrise.

"What did you just say?" Rivaille asks, even though he heard her clearly. He wanted an explanation.

"I said it probably would have been better if I was buried alive," she replied calmly, looking back up at him. Before he could say anything, she spoke again. "Can you help me get up? My muscles are screaming at me."

Rivaille shook his head at Lilith. "I'm not your doctor; I will not let you leave this room until you are allowed to leave."

Lilith rolled her eyes at him, and scooted towards the opposite side of the bed where nothing was in her way. She swung her legs over the edge, and the soles of her feet touched the cold floor below. Lilith stood quickly; the blood rushing to her head. Her vision blurred and she fell to the floor.

Rivaille was quick to catch Lilith before she hit her head on the stone floor. He couldn't risk her getting another head-injury; she could die from brain damage. His injured leg twisted in an awkward way, shooting pain through it. Rivaille didn't care; he laid on the dirty floor with Lilith's head in his hands. Lilith got up slowly, and she extended a hand to him to help him up. Of course he denied it; his ignorance got the better of him, and he got up on his own.

"I don't deserve to be saved," Lilith spat coldly at him as she dusted her backside off.

"What the hell is your problem?" Rivaille retorted with just as much venom. His leg hurt badly, and he winced as he put pressure on it. He caught Lilith's eyes examining his broken leg, then she looked back up at his face.

"I didn't save even one person on the expedition, therefor, no one needs to save me from being harmed."

Rivaille held back the urge to kick the woman in the face. Well, he couldn't with a broken leg, anyways.

"I'm so pathetic," Lilith says, "Even Petra hates me, and she's like the nicest person in the world!" Lilith waved her hands around, then winced in pain from the wound on her stomach. She could feel the flesh try to split open when she moved around.

Rivaille's expression darkened at the mention of Petra. Lilith didn't know; she had apparently _died_ herself at the time his squad was killed. Lilith's sharpness caught onto Rivaille's sudden change in mood, and she questions the man about it.

"Who else died besides_ me_?" Lilith asked with a snarl.

"_My squad_. I'm going to go get you some water. You better be in your bed whenever I come back, Lilith," Rivaille told her icily and limped towards the door. He opened and closed it quickly, disappearing from Lilith's green gaze.

Lilith sighed with relief and reached her arms above her head as she stretched. 'Should I tell him what happened whenever I_ supposedly_ died?,' Lilith thought with a hint of a grimace. She walked over to her bed and laid down on it. She was curious to see her wound that someone had bandaged, and she unbuttoned her gray shirt.

Fresh, white bandages were wrapped around her lower stomach. The wound didn't hurt as bad as it did whenever she first recieved it. Lilith started buttoning her shirt back up, making it half way whenever Rivaille walked back into the room. Lilith glanced at him, not even blushing from embarassment, and finished buttoning her shirt before looking back to him. Rivaille didn't say a word as he handed her a cup of water.

Lilith stared at her reflection swirling around in the cup. "I'm sorry for being so stubborn. It's just that so much has happened and I can't seem to accept it all at once." She apologized to him, and he grunted as a sign of acknowledgement.

"Hn, you can't seem to accept the fact that you are supposed to leave your clothes on," Rivaille stated sarcastically, sitting down on his stool.

"I didn't know when you was going to walk back in; plus I wanted to see how the wound on my stomach was doing."

"Are you in any pain?" He asks her.

"No... Do you know if my horse was brought here?" Lilith wonders what happened to Daymare.

"Nightmare?"

Lilith shook her head sadly, locking gazes with Rivaille. "Nightmare was killed because I'm stupid and careless; but I found a new horse. She was solid white."

Rivaille just shrugged lazily at her. Lilith closed her tired eyes and took a sip of water. She turned over on her side to face Rivaille, and she reached a hand towards his face. He didn't back away or get an angry look in his eyes. Lilith smiled softly and prodded his cheek, which was surprisingly soft.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes quietly.

Rivaille nearly rose a brow at her. There was no reason for her to apologize to him; she hadn't done anything wrong; and she just apologized minutes ago.

"For what?"

"I feel... _guilty_ that all of this had to happen to make me talk to you again," Lilith chose her words carefully, speaking slowly to him.

Images of the dead faces of his comrades flashed through his mind. Rivaille shakes his head to make the thoughts go away. But, whenever he looked back down at Lilith, a picture of her whenever she was dead popped up. He blinks several times and looks out of the window. Small icicles were forming on the roofs of nearby buildings. The light from the lamp-posts seemed to dance off of them. He knew that Lilith couldn't stand lying in a bed for much longer, especially if it was about to snow outside. A slight tug on his sleeve drew his attention back to the Oriental woman.

"Did you find my locket?" She asked, one hand holding the necklace and the other still on his sleeve.

Rivaille nodded. Lilith closed her beautiful eyes and inhaled sharply. After she blew out the big breath, she opened her eyes and cupped the heart-shaped locket in one hand. She gazed down at it with an icy glare. Rivaille crossed his arms over his stomach and tapped his foot against the floor as he watched Lilith curiously.

"Thank you," she started, looking back to him and letting the necklace drop from her grasp to hang around her pale neck once more. "I must have dropped it yesterday before I left... I knew that I left something behind, I just couldn't figure out what it was," Lilith paused in thought for a moment, "There's something I want to know."

"What is it?" Rivaille questions.

"Why were you asleep on me?" Lilith asked with a venomous, yet sweet tone that could send chills up your spine.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Rivaille stated sarcastically, making Lilith's eyes light up with anger. The woman's face twitched with irratation.

"I'm going to kick your ass," she growled darkly.

"Try it, woman, and see where it get's you in life," Rivaille taunted.

"Let me think; it'll get me into a hospital bed, right?" Lilith snorted with amusement.

"Who knows?" He tells her with a sly smirk, "You're already there."

Lilith sighed and wiggled closer to the edge of the bed, trying to move closer to him. "You know, you can leave if you want to. You should go to sleep before the sun rises," she says to him, blinking up at his face.

Rivaille said nothing. The man only stared down at her face. Lilith stared back, trying to figure him out. The look in his cold eyes was hard to decipher, and his face did not give away any sign of emotion. Lilith thought he looked bored, but then again, that is how he is on a normal basis. The raven-headed woman sat up on her bed, running a hand through her hair. She scooted to the other side of the bed and hopped off. When her bare feet touched the floor, it felt like ice. A rush of excitement ran through her whenever she caught a glimpse of snowflakes starting to fall from the dark sky.

Lilith's eyes darted around the room to try and locate her stuff. She spotted her boots sitting on top of a small dresser; as well as a jacket. She was quick to slide her boots on, and to put on her jacket, and she silently thanked the person that brought her some of her things. Lilith was going to go outside, since Rivaille didn't seem to mind. If he did, then he didn't mention it.

She walked over to the door and placed a hand on the door knob. Lilith glanced over her shoulder to see Rivaille staring at her. "Come with me, then," Lilith told him and opened the door. She heard the stool scoot across the floor as the man stood up, and his light footsteps followed in behind her's.

The woman slowed her pace to let Rivaille catch up. They walked in silence beside of each other; Lilith occasionally brushing against Rivaille on accident. Rivaille stepped ahead and pushed open the doors to the building, holding it open long enough for Lilith to get outside. She was welcomed by a cold gush of wind that played with her ebony mane.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Rivaille limping over to a bench and sitting down. He folded his arms, trying to hide the fact that he was cold. Lilith's keen eyes caught onto this, and she briskly walked over and plopped down beside of him. Rivaille glanced over at her a few times, enjoying the content look on her pale face. He could have sworn that there was a mischevious glint in her eyes.

Every few moments, Lilith scooted just a fraction closer to Rivaille. When she was almost touching him, he felt her warmth wash over him. Whenever he was starting to enjoy her being close, Lilith suddenly elbowed him in the side, nearly knocking the man off of the bench. Rivaille composed himself and glared at Lilith, who had a wry smirk on her face. That smirk soon faltered whenever Rivaille shoved her harshly off of the bench. The man didn't even have a look of sympathy in his icy glare as he looked down at Lilith.

Lilith landed on her bottom, and it hurt because the ground was frozen. She winced as she got to her feet, then sat back down next to Rivaille once more.

"What was that you said earlier about kicking my ass?" Rivaille asked with a teasing gleam in his eyes.

Lilith averted her sharp stare away from him, huffing under her breath. "I thought you told me I wasn't allowed to leave the room?" She retorted coldly.

Rivaille's expression became a slightly amused one as he said, "Touché."

At the sight of Lilith's face hardening as she became serious, Rivaille frowned.

"Do you want to know how I came back?" The woman asked..

Rivaille shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't matter; the only thing that matters is that you are alive now," he told her.

Lilith wasn't flattered at all by his _kind_ words; her face was still dead-serious.

"Don't try to make me smile, Rivaille," she said in a monotone voice, "Anyways, whenever I_ died_, all I seen at first was darkness. It was cold and it welcomed me. Then there was a faint light that started moving closer to me, and it turned out it was my inner-self, though she had a more murderous aura around her. She asked if I wanted to live, but before I could answer, she attacked me. I suppose our fight lasted for... however long I was not breathing. I was told that if I won then I would be sent back into my body to live, but there was no way I could win since we fought exactly the same way. Do you know what I did?"

Rivaille blinked a few times at Lilith, signaling her to continue with telling him her story.

"I stabbed myself through the heart. In all honesty I thought I was only dreaming, so I didn't think twice before doing it. Turns out that was the only way to win, and it knocked me back to reality."

The man next to her stayed silent for a few moments.

"You are a stupid woman," he deadpanned. "I'm starting to regret telling Hanji you were alive."

Lilith crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes tightly. "That wasn't nice," she told him.

"It wasn't meant to be."

The snow that had begun falling came down harder. Both people's heads were covered with snowflakes within seconds. Rivaille rose a hand up to his hair and dusted it off. Lilith just sat there, not caring at all. The woman prodded Rivaille's cheek, causing his head to whip around to face her. His fingers twitched, but he controlled himself from pinching her like he used to. It was a bad habbit.

"Are you cold?" She questioned curiously.

Rivaille surpressed another shiver that wanted to pass through him. "No," he lied.

Lilith tilted her head a bit, her eyes roaming over him. "Liar. You're practically shaking right now," Lilith said with a knowing look in her eyes, "Do you know what will make that better?"

"Going back inside," Rivaille growled under his breath. The woman acted like she never heard him. A sheepish smile plastered her face. In the blink of an eye, Lilith had her arms wrapped around him.

Rivaille tensed up. This wasn't like Lilith at all. Had the situation changed between them, after she had a near-death experience? He wondered if that was true, especially after he looked at her calm face leaned against his shoulder. She looked truely happy there; but she was smiling and showing more emotions than usual. And as if she was right, it did make him feel better. Though he wasn't sure if it was in a good way or not, because he felt warmth creeping up on his cheeks.

Lilith peeked open her eyes and looked at Rivaille's flushed face. She snorted with laughter, and jumped to her feet to get away from him before he could hurt her. Lilith calmed herself; laughing hurt her stomach. The woman gave him a small wave in front of his face to catch his attention. He had been staring at the ground with fire in his eyes; and Lilith wouldn't be surprised if he burnt a hole through the thin layer of snow.

"I'm going to go see if Irvin's awake. After that I'm going to sleep in our office; there's no way anyone is making me go back to that hospital room." Lilith spun on her heel and started walking towards the HQ.

"I'm going with you," Rivaille said, getting up and limping towards her.

Lilith paused in her tracks and waited for him to catch up. "How did you break your leg, anyways?"

"I saved your sister's ass," he bit out bitterly.

Something flared in Lilith's chest. It was similar to the feeling she got whenever she got jealous of Petra. Surely to goodness she wouldn't get mad over a simple thing. Well, it wasn't simple at all. The fact he saved Mikasa's life was great, and it probably wouldn't be the last time he would have to save another woman. So, Lilith muttered a "thank you" and left it at that.

The doors to Irvin Smith's office was open, so Lilith and Rivaille invited themselves in. Irvin was tapping a pen against the polished desk, making a quiet tapping sound. The blond man looked up whenever he felt two presences enter the room. His blue eyes held astonishment at the sight of Lilith walking; by the way things sounded earlier, she would take a while to recover.

"Good morning, Commander," Lilith said with a lazy smile and saluted.

"You're doing well, that's a good sign," Irvin was tempted to smile at the woman.

Lilith glanced sideways at Rivaille before saying, "I would like to go back to my duties as soon as possible."

Irvin's thick brows rose up and he shook his head. "I'm afraid you will have to wait until Major Hanji says you are healthy enough to."

Lilith's lips pursed as she frowned. "I am perfectly fine," she told him defiantly.

"You will have to explain that to her," Irvin said calmly, his eyes flickering in the candle-light. "However, you can still attend meetings even if you are not able to be on the battle field."

"Oh," Lilith said quietly, "That's fine by me. Can you please brief me on what I have missed out on?"

* * *

Rumors of the Colonel of the Scouting Legion dying had spread throughout humanity like a wild fire. Some even claimed they seen her in a caravan after the expedition had failed. However, they were shocked to hear she was actually alive. One of these people was Sasha Braus. The brunette girl had nearly trampled civilians as she ran to the Headquarters to see if Lilith was alive. The Potato Girl was sure that she wouldn't be the only one trying to get answers. Sasha was quick to guess where Lilith would be this early in the morning; the cafeteria.

All of this stress was getting to her head. She reached into the inside-pocket she made herself on her jacket and grabbed a still-warm potato. Sasha munched on it as she made her way to the cafeteria. Her earlier prediction was right; most of the people in her graduation year was surrounding a table. A few choices of how to break through the crowd of teenagers ran through her mind.

1) Wait patiently for them to leave.

2) Ask for them to move.

3) Knock Connie over and grab the seat next to Lilith.

A bead of sweat rolled down her slightly tanned face as she scratched out the first two options. She decided those didn't sound very much like something she would do. Plus Connie was smaller than most of the other's and he wouldn't get mad. Or at least she hoped he didn't. Sasha side-kicked the boy out of the way, and launched herself towards an empty seat. As soon as she sat down, a hand grabbed ahold of her ponytail and her chocolate eyes widened in fright as a voice whispered next to her ear, "I'll spank you for that later."

But when she turned around, Connie wasn't there. She sighed in relief, thinking she was just imagining things. Lilith was looking at Sasha with amusement in her pretty green eyes. Sasha smiled happily and just waved at the Oriental woman next to her like an idiot.

"I'll explain things later," Lilith whispered to Sasha, knowing what Sasha was going to ask. Sasha nodded with understandment, seeing there was too many people around.

"Miss Lilith! Did you really die?" Jean asks loudly, his voice booming over top of the endless chatter in the cafeteria.

Lilith looked at the tall boy and nodded slightly. Then her gaze swept over the crowd of kids around her.

"I am afraid I might again if you kiddos don't leave," she said icily, her brows furrowing slightly.

With the look on the woman's face, it did not take long for most of them to scatter and go socialize somewhere else. Mikasa, Armin, and Eren sat down on the other side of the table and begin eating their food; which did not look that appatizing. Sasha watched as Mikasa lifted a biscuit to her mouth and bit into it. The Braus girl started to drool, then ran off to get her own food.

"No one get's as excited as she does over food," Armin commented.

Everyone nodded in agreement. Lilith stared at the wall from boredness. There really wasn't much to do; Lilith was not permitted to practice with her gear just yet. Hanji had told her it would be about a week until she was allowed to do so. The titan-loving woman wanted to moniter her progress, just to make sure Lilith wouldn't harm her body further after what happened. Lilith wasn't one to always follow the rules, though, and she was bound to sneak off and train without anyone knowing.

The pounding of footsteps caught the group's attention. Here came Sasha, holding a basket of biscuits and a few jars of jam in her arms. Yelling could be heard from not far away. Sasha's frightened eyes locked on with Lilith's bored gaze.

"You shouldn't steal food from the kitchen," Lilith told her lazily, yawning a bit.

"Help me!" Sasha whimpered out, looking over her shoulder to see an angry soldier running towards her.

Lilith sighed and stood up. She stepped around Sasha and folded her arms over her chest. Her face twitched with irratation as she glared at the woman that was chasing after Sasha. Upon seeing Lilith, the blond woman halted in her tracks.

"I told her to go get that for me, Nanaba. Then you so happen to scare Sasha shitless," Lilith lied. Whenever she had first seen Nanaba with Mike some time ago, she thought that Nanaba was a male. Probably everyone did.

"I am sorry, ma'am," Nanaba bowed her head in apology, then turned on her heel and walked back towards the kitchen.

From behind Lilith, Sasha let out a nervous giggle. Lilith spun around to face the Potato Girl.

"You owe me one, Braus," she said before sitting back down.

While Sasha devoured her biscuits and jam hungrily, Lilith explained to the group what she could remember that happened to her.

'It's going to be a long day,' Lilith thinks with a scowl.


End file.
